A big surprise Billionaires in 3 years Different idea Not planned Rapid expansion
Ebay - one of the biggest and most successful websites in the world, with millions of visitors every day - wasn't born from the
marriage of technical
wizards and
venture capital. It started almost by chance, from one man's home page and a broken laser pointer. Here is that story.
It all started with 28-year-old software developer Pierre Omidyar (born in Paris to Iranian parents who later emigrated to the US). Omidyar had previously developed software for Apple computers. Sometime before September 1995, he sat down to write some computer code. This code later became the website ebay. But when he sat down, he wasn't trying to make an auction site. He wanted to make an online newspaper, and decided to start with the
classified advertisement section.
Omidyar wrote his classified advertisement section. At first it shared a server with some unrelated information about the Ebola virus. The only advertisement was for a broken laser pointer. Pierre had put the laser pointer on sale simply because he needed to test his software - and so he was completely shocked when somebody bought the item for $14.83. He just didn't believe it. He contacted the purchaser, and asked the
key question: “Why did you buy a broken laser pointer?” The reply was very simple: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers, but it's very difficult to find them for sale." At that moment, Pierre knew that he'd created something big. If he could sell a broken laser pointer, he could sell anything.
Growth was phenomenal. The classified advertisement section soon took over Pierre's entire domain, www.ebay.com, and the Ebola site had to find a new home. A few months later, Pierre needed help. He hired
Stanford MBA Jeffrey Skoll, and then
Harvard graduate Meg Whitman. Under their leadership
ebay grew rapidly. Very soon they were involved in nearly every type of market.
With exponential growth and strong branding, eBay thrived; it was one of the very few websites to be profitable from the start. By 1998, both Omidyar and Skoll were billionaires.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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