The last few years in the international business arena were full of innovative startups. These were not just duplication of established businesses but something new in the global market.
Common characteristic in all these startup ideas is how stupid and crazy they sound but they created a market where none existed. These have managed to overcome competitors by doing something completely different.
Of course, there is a subtle distinction between doing something that actually sounds useless and something that has potential in it. Here is a description of 5 crazy startup ideas that actually paid off:
Xiaomi
This is the world’s third largest smartphone maker initiated by China in 2010. Currently, it has a valuation of over $50 billion and has over 8,000 employees. But it doesn’t operate like other companies.
It sells phone cost-to-cost. In fact, it relies completely on online distribution. It actually makes money from ecommerce services. Since its inception, there has been an ever-increasing growth in the company.
Slack
This is an office communication chat tool launched in 2013 which holds value over billion dollars and over 300,000 teams utilizing it. Slack basically wanted to replace office email by centralizing the communications and work documents. It wanted to be an application that is used all time in office, and is successful in doing so.
The reason it worked was the integration with major enterprise applications like Heroku and Dropbox. It keeps a track of what is been done on these services. In a nutshell, it can be called Google-like platform for internal office communications.
Flipkart
Flipkart is India’s largest e-commerce website initiated by former Amazon employees in 2007. It has a value of over $11 billion. This startup began at a time when India did not have enough infrastructure for e-commerce and people were not familiar with the concepts of online shopping.
It worked enormously because it began with low startup costs and earned the trust of customers gradually. They continued to focus on different aspects like customer service and gave a wider access to the customers. You can click here for more details regarding Flipkart.
Uber
Valued at $40 billion, Uber is one of the largest on-demand transportation company. It brings ride to your doorstep which can ordered through an application. Furthermore, it is an easy way to earn income for drivers. It seems a norm now, but back then, when taxi industry was at its boom, Uber managed to make people believe that smartphone can be a dominant way to get people a ride.
The reason why this startup managed to makes it place in the international market is the convenience it offers to passengers.
Razer
Building consumer electronics since 1998, the company is valued at $1 billion. The company served gamers only which made it so unique. This company has been in the limelight for so long due to prevalence of gaming culture. Razer seemed to build niche products even before the niche existed.
