For an investor, the next unicorn is just over the horizon, and catching them early enough might be just the right time to pump their money into. The hunt is always on for a promising startup that would generate an enormous payoff for the investors. A unicorn is a privately owned startup company which has a valuation of over $1 billion. As of March 2022, there are over 1,068 unicorns in the whole world.

 

But a journey of a company from an idea to a unicorn although being business and number centric does not shy away from the very human elements like motivation, ambition, and vision to bring something greater to the world. We’ll look at a few examples of some of these great unicorn founders from all over the world and their famous quotes.

 

#1 Elon Musk, SpaceX

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”

 

Elon Musk is an investor and a business icon in the United States. Currently, he is the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Inc., founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of Open AI and Neuralink.

 

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has the job to design, manufacture, and successfully launch advanced aircraft into space. It was founded to cut down space interstellar transportation costs and work towards enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX currently values at US $125 billion.

 

#2 Zhang Yiming, ByteDance

“Do not internalize external causes, and do not mistake luck for capability.”

 

Zhang Yiming is one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs. He is the founder of ByteDance, and developer of the popular online platform TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) and news aggregator Toutiao.

 

ByteDance is an internet technology company from China which operates several platforms that educate, inform, inspire and entertain people across many demographics. ByteDance is currently valued at US $320 billion.

 

#3 Guillaume Pousaz, Checkout.com

“Be all in, all the time. You owe it to the company, to the other founders, and yourself.”

 

Guillaume Pousaz is a well-known investor and a Swiss billionaire entrepreneur from Dubai. As of January 2022, he is the founder and CEO of the payment platform called ‘Checkout.com’.

 

Checkout.com is an internationally operating financial technology company in London, UK that processes payments for other companies. Currently, the valuation stands at US $40 billion.

 

#4 Vijay Shekhar Sharma, One97 Communications

“The big giants with the deep pockets never win the war. Microsoft didn't win the search war. Search didn't win the social war. Social didn't win the messaging war.”

 

Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian businessman/billionaire. He launched One97 Communications in the year 2000 and was titled India’s youngest billionaire in the year 2017 by Forbes.

 

One97 Communications is an India based fintech/e-commerce company which later on launched Paytm as an online payments platform in 2009. As of January 2022, the valuation stood at US $7.8 billion.

 

#5 Melanie Perkins, Canva

“Anyone can have a solution, but if no one cares about it, unfortunately, you are not going to have a very big company.”

 

Melanie Perkins is a tech-oriented entrepreneur from Australia. She is the CEO and co-founder of Canva and comes under one of the youngest female CEOs around the world in a tech startup.

 

Canva is a popular design platform based in Australia. It is used for a range of activities like designing posters, social media graphics, video editing, picture manipulation, and more. The current valuation stands at US $40 billion.

 

#6 Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX

“Sometimes the obvious product is the right one. Other times it’s the lazy one.”

 

Sam Bankman-Fried or better known as SBF is an investor / billionaire / entrepreneur from America. He is the CEO and founder of FTX and is known for managing assets through a quantitative cryptocurrency firm called Alameda Research.

 

FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange firm located in Antigua, Barbuda, and The Bahamas (headquarters). As of January 2022, the current valuation stands at US $32 billion.

 

#7 Lucy Yueting Liu, Airwallex

“Choose investors who know your industry.”

 

Lucy Yueting Liu is the president and co-founder of Airwallex from Greater China. She is responsible for the operations and branding for the company, making it a fintech unicorn under her leadership.

 

Airwallex is a fintech company founded in Melbourne, Australia in the year 2015. It offers financial services like selling foreign exchange transactions for many companies. It was counted as Australia’s third tech unicorn. The current valuation stands at US $5.5 billion.

 

#8 Lei Jun, Xiaomi

“Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.”

 

Lei Jun is a billionaire / entrepreneur / angel investor from China. He is the founder and CEO of Xiaomi and a board member of Kingsoft. Lei Jun also founded Joyo.com which was later acquired by Amazon.

 

Xiaomi Corp. or Xiaomi Inc. is a Chinese manufacturer of household items, appliances, software products, and consumer electronics like smartphones. The current valuation stands at US $37 billion.

 

#9 Sachin Bansal, Flipkart

“Age doesn't matter if you have the attitude and drive to succeed.”

 

Sachin Bansal is an Indian entrepreneur popularly famous for being the founder and former chairman / CEO of Flipkart which was later acquired by Walmart. Sachin Bansal is now the managing director of Navi Group which is a financial services company.

 

Flipkart is an e-commerce company, and it is often compared to eBay and Amazon. Its headquarters is in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, and it is also incorporated in Singapore. The current valuation stands at US $37.6 billion.

 

#10 Ben Silbermann, Pinterest

“One of the things I've learned is to be receptive of feedback.”

 

Ben Silbermann is an American entrepreneur, He is the CEO and co-founder of Pinterest which was launched in 2010. Earlier, Ben also worked along with an online advertiser in Google and later on went to create his own iPhone apps before launching Pinterest.

 

Pinterest is an image based social media platform where the concept is to find and store online information using Images, GIFs, etc. The current valuation stands at US $12.54 billion.