The Unusual Way Youtube, Amazon, Twitter & Paypal Got Started

Youtube started out as a dating site.

Amazon began with Jeff Bezos selling second-hand books.

Twitter was going to be a podcast platform.

And PayPal was designed to simply be a payment processor for eBay.

So, as you can see, none of them ended up where they thought they’d be. Not just in terms of their size and reach, but in terms of their direction.

Today, Youtube has more hours of content on its website than there are hours in the entire history of the Earth’s 4.5 billion years (for real).

Amazon earns $7,300 every second.

Twitter has over 330 million active monthly users.

And PayPal’s net worth is currently $83.37 billion.

Not bad for people who had no idea where they were going.

The biggest thing that stands out for me here, though, is that although none of them could have predicted where they’d end up, they all started down a path and waited for that path to unfold.

We don’t have to always know where we’re going, we’ve just got to start moving and take the opportunities that present themselves when they come up. Sure, a plan is helpful but no one can foresee every single step along the way and that’s the joy.

This is fantastic news for all budding content creators, side-hustle enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs alike.

After all, we live in a time when predicting what the world will look like in 10 years is almost impossible, let alone trying to think about what opportunities will exist when we get there. Just look at Bitcoin 15 years ago.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now” — Chinese proverb

I’m sure we all wish to some degree that we could have started what we’re doing now 5 years ago. However, that’s all make-believe in the end. Our past self didn’t start for a reason and we have to trust that.

Who we are now is all we’ve got.

Below are two incredibly helpful tools that helped me get started. And they can be applied in any field and at any moment, by anyone in the world.

So, here goes.

1. Enjoy the process as much, if not more, than the outcome

If the owners of Youtube were rigid in their original dating site concept, they probably wouldn’t have created the YouTube we know today.

What this teaches me is that if there is creativity, joy, and a willingness to try and learn then wonderful and unexpected things can happen. However, rarely is it ever the other way around.

So, don’t be too attached to any particular outcome. Instead, enjoy the process and the results will come naturally.

“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running” — James Clear

2. Break complex tasks into small manageable ones

I borrowed this one from Mark Twain and it changed the way I work completely.

Here is the quote in full:

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”

Complex things can make us feel overwhelmed and feeling overwhelmed can make us feel anxious and/or scared. This can then lead to self-sabotaging behaviours such as procrastination or even contemplating the idea of quitting altogether.

I know I did both comprehensively.

A simple way to combat this is to break those bigger tasks down into smaller, more manageable ones and start on the first one. This helped me feel like I was moving forward, however tiny the steps felt.

Lists are my best friends here. Nowadays, I write very achievable to-do lists before I sit down and work. I then spend the next hour completing those mini-tasks so anything after that is just a bonus.

The power of this is that I feel on purpose and this then gives me a little dopamine hit. And once those little dopamine receptors have been tickled, they’re almost irresistible. This then makes the body want to do whatever it just did again, so it often will.

Cue another completed list and another dopamine hit.

If this is resonating, consider the 1% rule.

The 1% rule is simple: Improve each day by just 1% and watch consistent action add up to make big changes. Now, to break that down even further, 1% of 12 hours (the normal number of hours we’re actively awake/working) is 20 minutes. So, by completing daily tasks for just 20 minutes we hit our 1% quota.

That’s it.

It can really be that simple.

I know this sounds cheesy but doing this really changed everything for me.

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity” — James Clear

Closing thoughts

Starting anything new is always a challenge. There are a million and one things to learn and there are a million and one things that are unknown.

But to not start because of these reasons relinquishes the opportunity to grow.

John A. Shedd once said:

“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for”

It’s safe to stay in our comfort zone but that’s not where growth happens. The ocean is scary and exhilarating but it’s what makes us feel alive. And what’s more special than that?