Top 10 Best Side Hustles That Became Empires

Jeff Bezos quit his hedge fund job to sell books from his Seattle garage in 1994, personally driving packages to the post office in his Chevy Blazer during the early days.

Sara Blakely cut the feet off pantyhose while working as a door-to-door fax machine salesperson, invested her $5,000 savings, and built a billion-dollar shapewear empire.

Kevin Plank started sewing moisture-wicking shirts in his grandmother's basement while playing college football, selling them out of his car trunk to teammates.

Craig Newmark started an email list about San Francisco events as a personal hobby in 1995, which organically grew into the classifieds giant that gutted the newspaper industry.

Michael Kittredge melted crayons to make a candle as a Christmas gift for his mother in 1969 and neighbors offered to buy them, sparking a company later sold for $1.75 billion.

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia rented air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment to conference attendees who could not find hotel rooms, launching the home-sharing revolution.

Michael Dell started upgrading and selling PCs from his University of Texas dorm room in 1984, building a direct-to-consumer model that disrupted the entire computer industry.

Ben Francis started screen-printing gym T-shirts from his parents' garage in Birmingham while working as a Pizza Hut delivery driver, building a $1.3 billion fitness apparel brand by age 28.

Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius built an email marketing tool as a side project for their web design agency in 2001, bootstrapping it for 20 years before selling to Intuit for $12 billion.

Jeff Bezos quit his hedge fund job to sell books from his Seattle garage in 1994, personally driving packages to the post office in his Chevy Blazer during the early days.

Sara Blakely cut the feet off pantyhose while working as a door-to-door fax machine salesperson, invested her $5,000 savings, and built a billion-dollar shapewear empire.

Kevin Plank started sewing moisture-wicking shirts in his grandmother's basement while playing college football, selling them out of his car trunk to teammates.

Craig Newmark started an email list about San Francisco events as a personal hobby in 1995, which organically grew into the classifieds giant that gutted the newspaper industry.

Michael Kittredge melted crayons to make a candle as a Christmas gift for his mother in 1969 and neighbors offered to buy them, sparking a company later sold for $1.75 billion.

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia rented air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment to conference attendees who could not find hotel rooms, launching the home-sharing revolution.

Michael Dell started upgrading and selling PCs from his University of Texas dorm room in 1984, building a direct-to-consumer model that disrupted the entire computer industry.

Ben Francis started screen-printing gym T-shirts from his parents' garage in Birmingham while working as a Pizza Hut delivery driver, building a $1.3 billion fitness apparel brand by age 28.

Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius built an email marketing tool as a side project for their web design agency in 2001, bootstrapping it for 20 years before selling to Intuit for $12 billion.