How Pierre Omidyar started eBay as a side hobby (While working in a job)

Featured image source  – Photo by JB Reed/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pierre Omidyar the founder of eBay reveals how in 1995 he started the now multi-billion dollar e-commerce corporation as a side hobby. While working in a part time job.

His remarkable story proves that you too can start a business despite having many commitments on your schedule, i.e a job, schooling etc. So many aspiring entrepreneurs make excuses that they don’t have the time to work on their ideas or dreams, which prevents them from taking the leap.

Pierre Omidyar on how he started eBay as side hustle

The most important thing of eBay is the human side now. At the beginning I didn’t get that. For me it was an experiment. It was like I said, I wanted to create an efficient market where individuals could benefit from participating in an efficient market, kind of level the playing field. And I thought, “Gee, the Internet, the web, it’s perfect for this.” This is more of an intellectual pursuit, you know, than anything else. It was just an idea that I had, and I started it as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job. And it just kind of grew. Within six months it was earning revenue that was paying my costs. Within nine months the revenue was more than I was making on my day job, and that’s kind of when the light bulb went off. “Knock, knock, knock. You’ve got a business here, do something about it.” So that’s when that really started.

Source – Achievement.org