Small teams

Patrick Collison has a great list of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things. Inspired by that, I created a page of impressive things accomplished by small teams.

  • Instagram had 13 employees when they were acquired by Facebook for $1 billion. They had 30 millions users at the time. Source

  • Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) had 37 employees when they were acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. At that time, Mojang had revenue of about $290 million annually with profits of over $100 million. Source

  • WhatsApp had 55 employees when they were acquired by Facebook for $19 billion. Source

  • Notion has raised money at a $2 billion valuation with under 50 employees. Source

  • BuiltWith generates $14 million/year with a single employee. Source (an investor in the business)

  • The Gartman Letter had a single employee and was rumored to be doing $25M/year

  • Kylie Jenner sold a 51% stake in the Kylie Cosmetics for $600 million with just seven full-time and five part-time employees. Source

  • Craigslist generates around $1 billion/year with about 50 employees. Source

  • Plenty of Fish sold for $575 million with 75 employees. Source

  • Liberty Media had 16 employees and was worth multi-billions in the 90s. Source

  • Joe Rogan is making between $30-$50 million/year with a handful of employees. Source

  • The progress that the Wright brothers made on powered flight was so unbelievable that they had to spend two years convincing the US and French governments that it was true. Source

This list is very business heavy right now, but I would love to add some non-business examples too! Have more? Please reach out.

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