Wish you could start a super-successful business but don't have vast amounts of investment capital to make it happen? From small seeds grow mighty trees, and believe it or not some of the world's biggest and most valuable companies got going with little more than a dream and a modest sum of startup cash.

Read on to discover the incredible stories of 25 globally famous firms that were founded on a shoestring.

All dollar amounts in US dollars.

Londoners of very modest means, John James Sainsbury and his wife Mary scrimped and saved a few pounds to open a dairy shop in Holborn in 1869 and had to share a tiny flat above the shop with several families. That little store on Drury Lane grew into major supermarket chain Sainsbury's, which turned over more than $39 billion (£31bn) in 2023 alone.

In 1883 Barney Kroger used his entire life savings of $372, the equivalent of $11,600 (£9.1k) in today's money, to open a small grocery store on Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati. Kroger's humble business has since grown to become one of America's largest supermarket chains, reporting revenues of $148 billion (£117bn) in 2023.

According to company mythology, the iconic chewing gum firm, which was swallowed up by Mars Inc. in 2008, started out in 1891 with the $32 William Wrigley had in his pocket when he arrived in Chicago from Philadelphia. That sum would amount to $1,100 (£867) in today's money. However, what really happened was that Wrigley got his business off the ground with a small cash gift from his uncle.

Strapped for cash, William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson assembled the first real Harley-Davidson motorcycle in 1904 in a small shed in the Davidson family's backyard in Milwaukee. Today, their storied motorcycle firm, which turns over around $4.5 billion (£3.6bn) a year, has sprawling factories in the US, Brazil and Thailand.

In 1907 Seattle messenger boys James Casey and Claude Ryan borrowed $100 ($3.3k/£2.6k today) to set up their own delivery business, and the rest is history. Their firm, the American Messenger Company, rebranded in 1919 as the United Parcel Service. Today, UPS is the world's largest parcel delivery company, regularly boasting annual revenues of around $100 billion (£79bn).

Back in 1939 Stanford University grads Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard launched their namesake tech company in this one-car garage in Palo Alto, California with an initial investment of just $538, the equivalent of around $12,000 (£9.5k) in today's money. The garage, which has since been converted into a museum, is widely regarded as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. In 2023, the firm had revenues of $53.7 billion (£42.4bn).

Just 17 at the time, Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943 in the Swedish town of Älmhult as a mail order business with a small sum of cash his father gave him for studying hard and excelling in his high school exams. The flatpack furniture giant now has thousands of stores worldwide and sales of $50 billion (£40bn) in 2023 alone.

Mattel, one of the world's biggest and most-loved toy companies, was launched in 1945 out of a garage in Hawthorne, California by married couple Ruth and Elliot Handler and Harold 'Matt' Matson. The firm actually started off making picture frames before it began using scraps from the frames to make dolls house furniture. Last year the firm turned over more than $5.4 billion (£4.3bn).

Makeup and skincare genius Estée Lauder founded her eponymous company in 1946 with modest batches of facial creams concocted in her New York home. She went on to revolutionise the global cosmetics industry. For the last fiscal year, the firm, which counts brands including Clinique, MAC and Origins among its portfolio, reported sales of almost $12 billion (£9.5bn).

Tokyo defence contractor Masaru Ibuka partnered with former naval lieutenant Akio Morita in 1946 to establish Tosuko, the company that went on to become Sony, with startup capital equivalent to $1,800 (£1.4k) in today's money. Their first product was a 'power megaphone'. Today, Sony generates yearly revenues of $85 billion (£67bn).

Domino's started life in 1960 when brothers Tom and James Monaghan acquired their first pizza restaurant, which they named DomiNick's, in Ypsilanti, Michigan with a downpayment of just $75 and a $900 loan, or around $10,000 (£7.9k) in today's money. A year later, Tom traded in his car in order to buy out his brother and renamed the pizza joint Domino's. From these exceedingly humble beginnings, the company has become the world's number one pizza chain with annual revenues of around $4 billion (£3.2bn).

The sportswear behemoth was founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by college runner Phil Knight and his track coach Bill Bowerman in Eugene, Oregon with a $50 loan from Knight's father, the equivalent of $500 (£395) in today's money. During its early days, the firm operated out of the trunk of a Plymouth Valiant, from which Knight distributed Japanese Onitsuka Tiger running shoes. These days, the company turns over $40 billion (£32bn) annually.

Subway was born in 1965 when teenager Fred DeLuna partnered with family friend Pete Buck, who provided finance of $1,000, the equivalent of $10,000 (£7.9k) today, to open a sandwich shop in Bridgeport, Connecticut called Pete's Super Submarines. Subway now has tens of thousands of locations worldwide and annual revenues of more than $10 billion (£7.9bn).

Richard Branson was able to develop his entrepreneurial skills and found his Virgin empire in 1970 after his mother found a necklace on the street, which she handed in to the local police station. As nobody claimed the piece of jewellery, Mrs Branson was awarded £100 ($1.3k/£1k today) and gifted the cash to her son, who put it to very good use.

The very first Starbucks was opened on Seattle's Western Avenue on 31 March 1971 by three University of San Francisco grads who each invested around $1,000 ($7.8k/£6.2k today) to make it happen. However, it was taken over by ambitious employee Howard Schultz in 1987, who put an expansion plan in place, inspired by the coffee culture he had seen in Italy. From just one store, the company has now become the largest coffee chain in the world, with annual revenues of $28 billion (£22bn). 

Originally named Micro-Soft, the tech titan had very humble beginnings when it was founded by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen in a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 4 April 1975. The fledgling computer firm started out developing software for the Altair 8800, the game-changing device that sparked the PC revolution. In 2019, the company reached a valuation of a trillion dollars, the third US company to do so.

While the oft-mentioned story that Apple was born in the garage owned by Steve Jobs' parents in Los Altos, California is "a bit of a myth" according to cofounder Steve Wozniak, the tech titan did start out in 1976 with next to no money. Apple was the first US public company to hit a trillion-dollar valuation and last year raked in eye-watering revenues of over $380 billion (£300bn).

A bona fide rags-to-riches tale, John Paul DeJoria had a stint living out of his car before he got together with Paul Mitchell in 1980 to found haircare company John Paul Mitchell Systems in Hawaii. The pair established the business with a loan of just $700, the equivalent of $2,680 (£2.1k) in today's money. Today, DeJoria has a net worth of $3 billion (£2.4bn), according to Forbes.

Looking for a way to use up beeswax left over from his honey business, Maine beekeeper Burt Shavitz teamed up with candle maker Roxanne Quimby in 1984 and formed Burt's Bees. The company, which didn't start producing personal care products until the late 1980s, got going with $200 made at a craft fair. Quimby bought out Shavitz for a mere $130,000 in 1999, the equivalent of just $245,000 (£193k) today. But the firm was later sold to Clorox in 2007 for a huge $970 million, or $1.5 billion (£1.2bn) in today's money.

Michael Dell was just 19 and a student at the University of Texas at Austin when he created his groundbreaking computer hardware company, which initially traded under the name PC's Limited, in 1984. The visionary techy formed the business in his dorm room thanks to a $1,000 loan from his grandparents, the equivalent of $3,000 (£2.4k) today. Dell now turns over a staggering $100 billion (£79bn) a year.

In 1987, business partners Fernando Duarte and Robert Brozin had to borrow cash from friends and family to buy their first eatery, a small cafe in Johannesburg called Chickenland. Luckily, the piri-piri chicken joint was a hit from the start. Today, Nando's has 1,200 locations around the world and yearly revenues of $1.5 billion (£1.2bn).

Unstoppable entrepreneur Sara Blakely single-handedly developed and financed the shaping hosiery concept she named Spanx, and launched the brand from her Atlanta apartment in 2000 with just $5,000 ($9.2k/£7.3k) in startup cash. In 2021, Blackstone Inc. bought a majority stake in Spanx in a deal that valued the company at $1.2 billion (£947m). Blakely herself has a net worth of $1.1 billion (£868m), according to Forbes.

New Yorker Jon Oringer had created a string of startups, including one of the internet's first pop-up blockers, before striking gold with Shutterstock. The serial internet entrepreneur got his stock media firm off the ground in 2003 with little more than an $800 Canon camera. The company went public in 2012 and now boasts a yearly turnover of $886 million (£699m). 

The first port of call for holidaymakers in search of cheap flights, hotels, car hire and more, Skyscanner started out in a bedroom in Edinburgh in 2003 with nothing more than a simple Excel spreadsheet. Fast-forward to the present day, and the travel comparison site, which was snapped up by the Trip.com Group (formerly Ctrip) in 2016 for $1.7 billion ($2.2bn/£1.7bn today), pulls in annual revenues of $440 million (£350m).

Back in 2007, broke roommates Joe Gebbia and Brain Chesky were struggling to pay the rent on their San Francisco loft and decided to purchase three air mattresses they could hire out to paying guests. The duo pieced together a simple website and Airbnb was born. The company, which reported annual revenues of just under $10 billion (£7.9bn) in 2023, must have cost a couple of hundred dollars to set up, if that.

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