While all successes look alike, do you still want to know more about them? Probably, even more than about failures?
Well, researchers from Chicago Booth found out that success stories have a more positive influence on us than failure stories. That’s no wonder. You probably enjoy the carrot element more than the stick element in motivation.
And while that’s no point in violent “motivation” at all, our brain still thinks in a stick-and-carrot pattern and perceives failures as whip blows. Positive and negative elements are both important, such as yin and yang. So, we need to balance.
In this rubric, we’ll try to focus on several innovative success stories. While you certainly know some titles from here, very obvious examples, such as The Big Five, will NOT be present here. Amazon, Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are already overrepresented everywhere, and their paths to success are well-known, as well as the learning potential from their stories.
So, let’s focus on less obvious ones.
Aleph Farms
This company is dedicated to feeding the world with meat, created without killing anyone. While it has a large ethical and existential importance, its main value is food. We always need to eat something. Many people have limited access to food. And companies like Aleph Farms strive to solve this issue. And they have success, at least partially for now.
Aleph Farms was founded in 2017 in Israel, after the initial experiments of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg with cow cells. They were focused on growing muscle cells on various 3D scaffolds, ensuring their stable growth. As meat is essentially the aggregation of muscle cells with fat, such an approach enables growing clean meat. She described her successes in her 2019 article. Later, the company obtained $11 million in funding and an additional $105 million in 2021, as well as wide public support and recognition.
Eventually, in 2024, Israel approved its product, enabling them to sell it. The company has bold plans to reach price parity with conventional meat and even use its cultured meat to feed astronauts, growing it directly in space. Their current meat price is undisclosed, but it was already $100 per pound in 2019, so it’s probably much lower today. Its latest valuation is $325 million with $8.4 million of revenue, so its perspectives are bright.
How it relates to you
Humanity’s primary needs, such as food, always will be relevant, so when you find a way to satisfy them with lower prices and higher sustainability, you automatically obtain a high potential to succeed. The scaffold approach of Aleph Farms enables them to form actual meat stakes from animal cells, making them grow as they need. So, finding and patenting a new approach without large expenses is very important for innovational entrepreneurs.
Ultima Genomics
This company, established in 2016, works with a novel DNA sequencing method. It’s much cheaper than anything before, so enabling everyone to know what is encoded in their DNA. It means knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, possible genetic diseases, and many more. We’ll try to explain Ultima Genomics in plain language.
Its CEO, Gilad Almogy, is a physicist inspired by the continuing growth of semiconductors’ efficiency, so he believes that a similar approach can be applied to the gene sequencing industry. So, the company connects the brightest minds in the biotech industry and promotes cooperation between them. Together, they’ve developed a gene sequencing approach using a specific circular DNA synthesis cell, describing it in their 2022 article. In addition, they’ve leveraged AI to speed up all computations and pattern recognitions. As a result, they’ve reached a genome sequencing price breakthrough.
In 2024, the company revealed that these findings enable them to sequence the whole human genome for less than $100, according to Business Wire. Its UG 100™ sequencer, using such DNA synthesis cells, is now available for purchase. You can see its cost characteristics in the graphs below. Note that one can sequence multiple genomes per run, and the total length of one human genome is 3.1 Gb (3.1 billion bases). As the 1 Gb costs only $1.00, the total cost may be close to $100.
The company has a $700 million valuation and $74 million revenue now.
How it relates to you
While innovative potential is hard to measure, you can measure its effect. If you can connect various people to create something that changes human lives for the better, with the price lower than ever before, and communicate it successfully, you are secure. This is what Ultima Genomics has reached, having the genome transcript for less than $100. Similarly, decades before, Apple with its affordable computer hardware, and then Microsoft with its affordable OS software had themselves secured, too. In addition, their successes remind us that no exceptional breakthroughs can be achieved alone, so the most successful innovative companies are well-known for their strong uniting potential.
Nubank
Money is a topic usually related to stress, desire, and a bunch of contradictory emotions. That’s no wonder, as so much in our lives depends on them.
This Brazilian neobank was founded in 2013, not so far ago, but it has more online presence than many large traditional banks and a more than $40 billion valuation. Why? It eased the burden of money-related stress on people. And, simultaneously, it returned them their control over money. It offers digital payment accounts with cards, charges no fees, protects all funds, and provides robust and instant customer support when needed. It also enables investment operations and crypto transfers, reducing associated risks.
Nubank emerged when Brazil’s banks were mostly inefficient, with large usage fees, slow transactions, and queues. Its first offer was simple: a credit card with no fees available via a free digital account in a mobile app. After they managed to obtain permission to work in 2014 and raised around 600 million Brazilian reals, the interest in the bank started to grow steadily. Each year, millions of users in heavily populated Brazil choose efficient and affordable digital banks over traditional bureaucratic giants. Eventually, it attracted the attention of Warren Buffett who invested $500 million in it.
In 2023, Nubank had $8 billion in revenue and over $1 billion in net profit, according to their financial statement. According to Statista, in 2023 it has almost 70 million of users, a 30-million increase compared to 2021. All this is possible due to its innovative mobile banking experience and the focus on customer support and safety.
How it relate to you
The right path to success is exploiting some deficiencies in the system and replacing it with a more efficient infrastructure. As people use the infrastructure, again and again, it generates increasingly more value. That’s how Facebook arose in the 2000s, creating a new communication infrastructure to connect people from distant countries. That’s how Nubank and other neobanks arose in the 2010s, making money operations quick, free, and online. Build an efficient customer-centric ecosystem based on the latest technological advances, and you’ll be secured.
Duolingo
This one is pretty well-known. Do you fear the green owl that will execute you for not passing your Spanish course? Are you addicted to the streak-keeping and the game-like experience? It seems Duolingo exploits all our instincts to make us learn better without becoming bored, and it mostly succeeds.
The idea of such an app emerged at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009, by Prof. Luis von Ahn, who eventually launched the app in 2012. It gained popularity quite quickly, growing to 5 million users in 2013 and raising more than $100 million by 2015. In 2019, the company became a unicorn with more than $1 billion in valuation, and it reached 6.5 billion in 2021, so today it’s probably even larger. As you’ll see, the company’s steady growth was the consequence of its very elaborate strategy and robust user research.
Their interface is so game-like that many people used to say play Duo instead of learning with it. The green owl Duo and his friends became a well-known everyone’s favorite. It currently has 39 languages available for English speakers and 37 million monthly active users. While it has a paid version, which is the app’s primary monetization strategy, only about 5% of users purchase it. However, it’s enough. The Duolingo’s revenue grew from 70.76 in 2019 to 531.11 in 2023, according to Statista.
The company’s interactive approach is also used in social media. And it’s the author of many memes, further increasing their popularity.
But under all these playful interactions lay the years of scrupulous scientific exploration, done by Duolingo Research. Everything in the company was calculated based on thousands of user reviews and millions of their interactions. It’s one of the best examples of successful UI/UX strategies you can find. Each color, character, story, and design element of their game-like interface is designed to engage and involve. Today, the company leverages AI to automatize the process of lesson generation, and it’ll probably expand even faster in the future. A good reminder about the usefulness of good UX research.
How it relates to you
The success of your product is measured in how much your users interact with it, are satisfied with it, and are ready to pay for it. The interactive approach, backed by thorough user research, is the answer to how to deliver your service in the best way. Duolingo became the top-first language learning app in the world by using it, as people often want and need to know more languages and are happy to be involved in it. There are plenty of other areas where people need involvement, so Duo’s approach will reach them, sooner or later!
Roblox
This company is one of the largest and most successful innovators in the world of entertainment, so we’ll end our review with it.
It was released in 2006 by two engineers, David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, who already had the experience of creating simulation software. Initially, Roblox was a platform to build simple 3D games, mostly for education purposes, but then it was scaled to the platform for digital creation, play, and communication. It released the iOS app in 2012 and the Android one in 2014, and also announced its VR version in 2016 with Oculus Rift. In 2021, it raised $520 million of investments, went public, and increased its valuation manyfold: from around $1 billion before 2019 to almost $45 billion in 2021.
It combines the elements of a game aggregator, social network, creation studio, and metaverse, enabling everyone to create their own digital assets and trade them as they want. You can also create your own game here and engage players with them. All of this is done using Roblox Studio, a company’s free 3D modeling tool with scripting options, and then distributed using your account. You can connect with others in Roblox communities, play games together, and sell your own assets. The company earns on commissions from each purchase, as it has its own digital currency, Robux, that can be exchanged for real-world money.
Today, its valuation is around $20 billion, fluctuating heavily, while the number of active users is around 56 million, most of which are teens. The company turned the 3D modeling process into entertainment while satisfying the demand for interactive games and communication and earning on user interactions. According to Statista, Roblox’s revenues increased from several hundreds of millions of dollars before 2019 to more than $2.6 billion in 2023. So, this model proved itself to be highly viable.
How it relates to you
If you can create a platform where people can create, that’s good, but if they can interact with others or even sell their creations, it gains large transformative potential. Moreover, you can easily adopt new technologies and leverage them to make your platform more efficient, as Roblox is adopting the metaverse. If the product has the potential to involve people to interact with each other and scale with their activities, it has the equal potential to succeed.
Successes can teach you the right practices and inspire you, but remember that all stories have its own context. You cannot copy someone’s success because they have their niche already taken. You can create your own path instead and establish your own niche, using the techniques of successful companies. The efficient way to satisfy the basic needs of Aleph Farms, a multidisciplinary scientific breakthrough of Ultima Genomics, the new efficient infrastructure of Nubank, a well-backed interactive approach of Duo, and the user-centric creator and entertainment platform of Roblox are good examples. But don’t forget: you’re always starting on your own.
Still, there are much more paths to fail than to succeed. We want you to avoid them, so wait for our next failure story to sober up a bit!
Dear Reader,
We’re striving to make the best possible content for innovative entrepreneurs. So, we’re open to all suggestions that would make our content better! Please, leave feedback, suggest which topics would be better to add or change, and share your own success or failure story.
Glad to see your thoughts in the comments or contact our content creator directly at LinkedIn.
