BuildHQ

it's crazy how a simple side project can turn into something that is used by millions of ppl daily. here are 10 startups that started small and grew into giants: 1. product hunt: product hunt began as an email newsletter that founder ryan hoover sent out to his friends. it was a simple list of cool new products that he found. over time, the side project evolved into a website and then into a significant startup that angellist later acquired. 2. slack: initially, stewart butterfield and his team were working on a game called 'tiny speck.' they built a communication tool for internal use. it turned out to be so useful that they decided to pivot and turn it into a product of its own. 3. twitch: justin kan and emmett shear initially started a company called justin dot tv, where justin would live stream his life 24/7. as a part of the platform, they built a live streaming tool for gaming, which started to gain traction. this eventually spun out into twitch, which amazon acquired for nearly $1 billion. 4. unsplash: unsplash started as a tumblr blog side project by the team at crew, a freelance marketplace. they had leftover photos from a photoshoot, and instead of letting them go to waste, they decided to give them away for free. unsplash is now one of the most popular stock image sources. 5. shopify: tobias lütke and scott lake initially started shopify as a side project to sell snowboards online. but they found that the available platforms were pretty bad. so, they decided to build their own -- which became shopify. 6. github: tom preston-werner, chris wanstrath, and pj hyett started github as a weekend project. the project was built to simplify sharing code for them and their friends who were software developers. 7. canva: melanie perkins started canva as a side project. originally, she was teaching design programs at university and noticed that students struggled with understanding basic concepts. so, she developed the initial idea of an online tool to create school yearbooks, which later became canva. 8. patreon: jack conte, a musician and youtube creator, was looking for a way to make a sustainable income from his passion. there wasn't existing platforms that could do what he wanted, so he created patreon tailored for fans to fund their favorite creators. 9. behance: scott belsky and matias corea started behance as a side project to help creatives showcase their portfolios online. adobe later acquired the platform, and it's still one of the popular platforms for ppl in the creative profession. 10. etsy: rob kalin, chris maguire, and haim schoppik started etsy as a side project. kalin wanted to sell his handmade wood-encased computers, but he couldn't find a platform to do so, which led him and his partners to create etsy.