Hey Youtube, Jim here! Welcome to Top10Archive! While today it seems that every company loves to
talk about their rough starts, very few actually admit that they were about to fail before they
blew up with success. Well, we’re here to give you some inspiration. Whether you want to feel
better about your business that’s maybe not doing so hot, or you just want to bask in
the times people were about to hit the jackpot and almost tanked, we’ve got you, as we cover
the Top 10 Companies That Almost Failed! But before we get started, why not become
an archivist today by clicking that subscribe button and notification bell so you don't miss
out on any future uploads! If you end up enjoying this video, let us know by giving it a thumbs up
and in the comment section, tell us which company on our list that you couldn't live without!
10. Lego I know what you’re thinking. Lego? No way.
They were founded in Denmark in 1895, but in 1924, the entire workshop went up in flames.
After rebuilding a larger workshop, they nearly went bankrupt during the depression in 1932
from the lack of sales. Surviving through that, 10 years later in 1942, the factory, once again,
went up in flames and needed to be rebuilt. Fast forward to 1960, and, you guessed it,
a third fire would consume most of the factory and needed to be rebuilt. Then in 2003, Lego was
$800 million in debt, thanks to mass production of toys that didn't target their major demographic.
In 2015, thanks to new the CEO, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, who reduced the number of different
pieces that Lego manufactured from 12,900 to 7,000, the company boosted profits of more than
$600 million annually. 9. Blogger
Founded in 1999, this whole business was meant to make blogging easier for people.
Evan Williams had a strong start, getting interest, and start-up capital to expand.
Of course, then the market crashed in 2000 and Williams had to lay absolutely
everyone off. Except himself, of course. He kept working alone until 4 years later,
when Google showed up at his door ready to buy him out for an undisclosed amount of money.
Would you have stuck around three years after the massive failure of your expansion?
8. KFC Though KFC is now huge all over the world,
you’d be surprised to hear that the famous Colonel Sanders almost gave up on it. KFC started as a
roadside stop-in. Then, a larger road was built nearby, pulling traffic away from his business.
All of a sudden, people weren’t driving by and even when hungry, didn’t know they existed.
This was all before Google Maps, of course. So what did he do? He tried to monetize the recipe,
which out of the hundreds of restaurants he visited trying to sell it, not one person saw
the value in. Until, that is, when he was 75 and a lucky buyer took it for a whopping $15 million.
7. Delta A household name now, Delta got its start in the
1920s. Most bad press days don’t amount to much after a few days, but Delta was hit big, so to
speak, after 9/11. The airline industry was at an all-time low and pilots were seeing the effects in
their paychecks. They striked for years, and the business was tanking fast. Fast-forward to 2007,
when a reorganization plan by creditors led to its discovery. All of a sudden, now it brings in
billions! The lesson there? Just tough it! 6. Netflix
Netflix is a huge household brand. If you haven't heard of them by now, well, then, we can't be
friends. It doesn’t even matter if you have a TV, if you have a computer or a cell phone, or
even have a mailing address if you don't have the internet, you can definitely watch Netflix. But
that wasn't always the case. Despite Blockbuster making one of the worst business decisions in
history by passing up the offer to buy Netflix for a measly $50 million back in 2000, Netflix CEO,
Reed Hastings, hasn't made the best decisions for his company since then, either. In 2011, Hastings
decided to split the DVD and streaming portions of his business model to become two separate
packages, which angered customers enough to dub him with the new nickname, "Greed" Hastings. In
September of that year, the company announced they expected to lose 1 million customers.
Afterwards, their stock price fell by 19% in a single day. By October, they had lost 3/4 of its
share values within 3 months, and in early 2012, two longtime top executives had left the company.
5. FedEx FedEx is now one of the go-to shippers for anyone
in e-commerce. Which is a huge deal in the age of online shopping. However, it took a long time
to get that way. FedEx founder, Frederick Smith, could barely keep his head above water when the
bills started to pile up. In fact, the company was down to its last $5,000 and was denied a $24,000
loan needed to cover a fuel bill. Caught between a rock and a hard place during desperate times,
Frederick decided to take desperate measures. He took his last $5,000 and flew to Las Vegas,
betting the remaining funds on a blackjack table. Luck was on his side because Frederick ended up
leaving Vegas with $27,000 in his hands. The rest is history, and as of 2020, the company
is generating annual sales north of $65 billion, and is currently in the top 50 in the Fortune 500.
4. Marvel Out of all of these companies,
Marvel may be the most believable. For a company that thrived thanks to young kids’ undying love
of image-rich stories about superhumans, why did they come so close to failing? Financial mistakes
were made, it seems, which dropped share prices by about 90% in the 1990s. By 1996,
they were in debt nearly $2 million to Disney and had to lay off over 1/3 of their employees, and
were forced to filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. What turned it around? A series of fortunate events.
After a merger with Isaac Perlmutter’s Toy Biz, the Israel-born toy manufacturer saw a different
approach than paper comics - physical toys. In 2007, it all changed when a B-rated hero,
Iron Man, skyrocketed in sales. The following year, the Iron Man movie, starring Robert Downey
Jr. debuted, which grossed more than $585 million worldwide. That caught the attention of Disney,
which would acquire Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for a whopping $4.24 billion.
And the rest is history. 3. Nintendo
Nintendo has seen a comeback as of late but it will never be as big as when we were all playing
Nintendo 64, the golden days of Mario Kart and GoldenEye. They have an older history than you
may think, though, with their origins back in 1889, when they used to sell trading cards. Within
those last 130 years, there have been multiple times that the company almost folded - too many
to explain and talk about in this list. One of the closest times came in 1959, though,
when their trading cards were losing steam, as they were only thought of as gambling devices.
Just like Marvel, Disney came to save the day for Nintendo by striking a deal to license
Disney characters on their cards, which opened up a whole new demographic of potential buyers.
2. Apple What list of HUGE companies is full without
Apple? Before the iPhone, they were pretty close to failure. Steve Jobs had left Apple in the 1980s
and found, when he returned, that the company was spiraling downwards at an increasing rate.
In 1997, when he returned, the company was just 90 days from going broke, after it had
just cut a third of its workforce, mostly in part because Microsoft was decimating them.
And, well, after Jobs took the reins, we all know what happened and you may or may not have a result
of that right in your pocket. By 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded American company
to be worth more than $1 trillion. 1. Airbnb
Just a year after they started, Airbnb was close to going bust in 2009.
At the time, the company had flatlined at just $800 in monthly revenue, with its 3 founders
living in the overly-expensive San Fransisco. At the time, just 40 listings were on the site,
and by using their own product, they came to a stark realization. All 40 listings had
really bad photos that were taken from camera phones. On a hunch and without any data to go on,
the team, who was in severe credit card debt to save the business, flew to New York to take their
own better-quality pictures of the listings. The following month, revenue had doubled to $1600.
And that was when things started to pick up steam. They were accepted in “Y Combinator”, a funding
company for startups, and went on to become the most successful business to use their service.
As of 2020, the company is said to be worth roughly $40 billion.
Thanks for watching! Did you find any of these companies’ stories inspiring or surprising?
Which one of these companies could you simply not live without today? Let us know in the comments.
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