An idea to billions of dollars – the eBay story
Have you ever thought of the power of a simple idea which put in action? Have you got an idea and never tried to put in action? Well, you might start work on your simple idea after reading the story of ebay.com
The Ebay story – How Pierre Omidyar Turned an Idea into Billions of Dollars.
Ebay.com, the popular site for buying and selling anything and everything. The world’s market place which holds approx. 24 Billion USD in assets, 162 Million users and 25 Million sellers’. Rest of this article will explain how ebay was founded and you will understand the power of an idea put in action.
The Auction Web was founded in California on September 3, 1995 by French-born Iranian-American computer programmer Pierre Omidyar (born June 21, 1967) as part of a larger personal site. eBay was simply a side hobby for Omidyar until his Internet service provider informed him he would need to upgrade to a business account due to the high volume of traffic to his website. The resulting price increase (from $30/month to $250) forced him to start charging those who used eBay, and was not met with any animosity. It resulted in the hiring of Chris Agarpao as eBay’s first employee to handle the number of checks coming in for fees.
The company officially changed the name of its service from AuctionWeb to eBay in September 1997. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar’s consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name echobay.com, but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
eBay went public on September 21, 1998, Omidyar became instant billionaire. eBay’s target share price of $18 was all but ignored as the price went to $53.50 on the first day of trading and rest is history.
Today, Ebay boasts approx. 18 Billion USD in assets and over 13000+ employees; also ebay has operations in over 30 countries worldwide.
Today ebay owns PayPal, stub hub, Skype, craigslist and many more companies.
Since its beginnings in 1995, eBay has seen explosive growth and is one of the most recognized and accessible companies in history.
Don’t under estimate the power of a simple idea, start thinking of realizing your idea and don’t get surprised when your business is featured in leading magazines in future.
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