Investing $1,000 in these companies when they were start-ups would have made you a fortune
Published on Aug 02, 2023 at 4:16 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Aug 04, 2023 at 4:14 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
Bullet Pitch co-founder Brett Perlmutter is revealing the astronomical returns early adopters enjoy when they bet on the right horse.
Brett used four well-known companies for his example; Instagram, Airbnb, Uber and Tesla.
The numbers are, quite frankly, mind-blowing.
READ MORE: The first jobs of the world’s richest people shows everyone has to start somewhere
If you invested $1,000 in Tesla back when it was just getting started, you’d now have $232,000.
Investing in Uber before it became the go-to ride-hailing app, would have resulted in a similar return.
Your $1,000 investment would now be worth $148,000.
Things look even better (or worse, depending on your point of view) with Meta’s top app, Instagram.
Thanks to the meteoric trajectory of the world’s most popular photo-sharing app, a $1,000 investment when it started would be worth around $500,000 today.
However, Airbnb takes the crown here.
If you’d invested $1,000 in the company back when it was just a rising startup, you would have made $3 million.
It’s obviously very difficult to predict which start-ups are going to blow up, and which ones are going to go belly-up.
Out of the four we’ve mentioned, Instagram may have been the easiest one to spot.
Mainly because it was still relatively undervalued when Meta (then Facebook) bought it.
By contrast, Tesla was perhaps the most difficult one to predict.
The first car was launched in the late 2000s, back when gas was super cheap, and gas and diesel-powered cars were affordable.
Furthermore, the first Tesla (pictured below) was essentially just a recycled Lotus Elise with over 6,800 batteries instead of an engine.
Fast-forward to 2023 and Tesla is selling more than one million vehicles per year, and the company is worth $816 billion.
Meanwhile, Airbnb is valued at around $92 billion, Instagram is worth around $100 billion and Uber has a market capitalization of $94 billion.
Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?
Alessandro is an automotive journalist with 10 years of experience covering supercars, automotive history, emerging vehicle technology, and luxury transportation. He wrote the first article published on SupercarBlondie.com when the website launched in 2022 and has since built a reputation for insightful reporting across the automotive and transportation industries. His expertise is grounded in hands-on experience. Alessandro has driven every Tesla model ever produced, from the original Roadster to the Cybertruck, and regularly covers the latest developments in electric vehicles and automotive innovation. His passion for transportation extends beyond cars, he has even flown a Boeing 787 Dreamliner simulator in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His reporting spans everything from classic American muscle cars and rare automotive discoveries to luxury yachts, private aircraft, high-end watches, and cutting-edge vehicle technology. Known for his deep knowledge of automotive history and ability to uncover the stories behind iconic vehicles, Alessandro brings readers a blend of historical context, technical expertise, and first-hand experience.
