Student Success Stories

How a sophomore's social directory project became Facebook, the platform that connected billions and redefined the internet.

How a 19-year-old Aston University student built Gymshark from his parents' garage into a global fitness brand worth over £1 billion.

A 19-year-old design tutor in Perth saw that tools like Photoshop were needlessly complex. She built Canva — now used by 170 million people.

Two design school graduates couldn't pay rent, so they bought air mattresses and rented them out. That side hustle became Airbnb.

At 15, Jamal Edwards started filming rappers in his neighbourhood. SBTV launched the careers of Ed Sheeran, Dave, and Jessie J.

Fraser Doherty made jam from his grandmother's recipes at 14 and became the youngest-ever supplier to a major UK supermarket.

Alexandr Wang saw that AI's biggest bottleneck wasn't algorithms — it was data. Scale AI is now worth $7.3 billion.

At 19, Ritesh Agarwal founded OYO Rooms. Backed by SoftBank, it grew to 1 million rooms across 80 countries.

Ohanian and Huffman pitched a food-ordering app and got rejected. The investor suggested they build something else — Reddit.

Michael Dell started upgrading and selling PCs from his UT Austin dorm room with $1,000. Dell Technologies is now worth over $50 billion.

Evan Spiegel's class project at Stanford became Snapchat — the app that introduced disappearing messages and changed social media forever.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Google's search algorithm as a Stanford PhD research project. It became the most visited website in history.

Drew Houston was frustrated by constantly forgetting his USB drive. His solution became Dropbox, now used by 700 million people.

Kevin Systrom taught himself to code at night and built Instagram's first version in 8 weeks. Facebook acquired it for $1 billion.

Patrick and John Collison left MIT and Harvard to build Stripe. It's now worth $65 billion and processes hundreds of billions in payments.

Jessica Mah built her first web company at 13. At UC Berkeley she co-founded inDinero, an AI accounting platform that raised $30 million.

Katrina Lake started Stitch Fix from her Cambridge apartment, personally styling the first clients. She became the youngest woman to take a company public.

Aaron Levie started Box in his USC dorm room to make file sharing simple for businesses. It's now a $4 billion public company.

Sahil Lavingia built Gumroad as a weekend project after leaving Pinterest. It nearly failed, but he rebuilt it into a platform paying creators $875 million.

Andrew Mason's group coupon idea at Northwestern became Groupon — the fastest company in history to reach $1 billion in revenue.

Jeremy Stoppelman got the flu and couldn't find a good doctor online. That frustration became Yelp, now with 244 million reviews.

Nick D'Aloisio taught himself to code at 12 and created Summly, an AI news summariser. Yahoo acquired it for $30 million when he was 17.

Nick Jenkins spotted that the greetings card market was ripe for disruption. Moonpig became a £1.2 billion company and a household name.

Martha Lane Fox co-founded Lastminute.com while in her twenties. It floated for £571 million and she became a life peer in the House of Lords.

Eben Upton noticed fewer kids were learning to code. His $35 Raspberry Pi computer has sold over 60 million units worldwide.

Daniel Ek watched the music industry crumble to piracy. His solution, Spotify, now has 600 million users and transformed how the world listens to music.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski pitched buy-now-pay-later at a Stockholm student competition and came last. Klarna is now Europe's most valuable fintech.

Luis von Ahn invented CAPTCHA, sold reCAPTCHA to Google, then built Duolingo — a free language app with 500 million users.

Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham saw immigrants paying unfair insurance prices. Marshmallow is now valued at over £1.25 billion.

Jamie Murray Wells discovered glasses cost pennies to make but sold for hundreds. Glasses Direct disrupted the entire UK optician market.

Anne Boden left a prestigious banking career to build Starling Bank — now serving 3.6 million accounts and proving it's never too late to start.

Nikolay Storonsky was tired of losing money on currency exchange fees. Revolut is now valued at $33 billion with 35 million customers.

Zhang Yiming studied software engineering at Nankai University and built ByteDance — the company behind TikTok, now worth over $220 billion.

Jack Ma failed his university entrance exam twice and was rejected from 30 jobs. He built Alibaba into a $200+ billion e-commerce empire.

Tobias Lutke just wanted to sell snowboards online. The store he built for himself became Shopify — now powering millions of businesses worldwide.

With just $10,000 on a credit card, two UNSW graduates built Atlassian — makers of Jira and Confluence — without a single dollar of venture capital.

Jan Koum emigrated from Ukraine at 16, learned to code from library books, and built WhatsApp. Facebook acquired it for $19 billion.

Strive Masiyiwa battled the Zimbabwean government for five years for the right to start a mobile network. Econet Wireless now operates across Africa.

Henrique Dubugras came to Stanford from Brazil, dropped out, and co-founded Brex — a corporate credit card company valued at $12.3 billion.

Nigerian-born Tope Awotona invested his life savings into Calendly. After years of struggle, it became one of the most profitable SaaS companies ever.

At 14, William Kamkwamba built a windmill from scrap parts in Malawi, bringing electricity to his village. His story inspired a book and Netflix film.

Kunal Shah failed his MBA entrance exam four times. He went on to build FreeCharge (sold for $400M) and CRED (valued at $6.4 billion).

Anthony Tan wrote Grab as a Harvard Business School plan to fix taxi safety in Malaysia. It's now worth $12 billion and serves 8 countries.

Fred Swaniker grew up across five African countries and founded a network of leadership institutions aiming to develop 3 million ethical African leaders.

Frustrated by losing money every month on international transfers, two Estonian friends built Wise — now processing $12 billion monthly.

Niklas Zennstrom studied at Uppsala University and co-created Skype, making free international calls possible. Microsoft bought it for $8.5 billion.

Riccardo Zacconi studied at LUISS in Rome and built King, the company behind Candy Crush. Activision acquired it for $5.9 billion.

While Melanie Perkins is Canva's public face, Cliff Obrecht built the operational backbone — from Fusion Books to a $40 billion design platform.

Debbie Wosskow built Love Home Swap (acquired by Wyndham) and co-founded AllBright, the UK's largest network for professional women.

Too Good To Go lets you buy surplus food from restaurants at a discount. It now has 80 million users and has saved 300 million meals from landfill.