AOL’s exuberance

American based Mass Media Company and digital distributor of content, products and services, American Online has a few secrets up its sleeve. In late 2011, Eric Simons was resolute enough in taking the necessary initiatives of building a startup. Due to his diligence and supreme dedication, his startup ClassConnect was selected for an incubator program hosted on AOL’s campus in Palo Alto, USA. Despite the completion of the program, Simons gave viable reasons to continue his stay at AOL’s campus. Armed with a valid building pass, he did the needful to work exceptionally on ClassConnect. Simon’s daily schedule: work late, sleep on sofas, eat the free food, and make the best use of gym locker room as a storage facility and a place to take a restful shower. More often than not, many an AOL employee mistook him for a young employee who was in constant pursuit of earning a solid reputation. Eventually, Simons’ ruse was discovered by a security guard. He revoked Simons’ building pass and ditched him. Au contraire, AOL’s credit earned its merit as Simons spread the good word to the entire world. The tremendous strides in the workplace prompted one of the executives at AOL to covey, “It was always our intention to facilitate entrepreneurialism in the Palo Alto office. We just didn’t expect it to work so well.” Ultimately, ClassConnect experienced a metamorphosis and established itself as Thinkster. eBay’s fad: What’s your opinion on a man’s trash? Nada? Well, eBay believes in this witty aphorism- One man’s trash is another’s treasure. However, nothing works wonders like eBay’s modus operandi. The auction giant got its start when its founder, Pierre Omidyar, was tinkering with his new website called, then called AuctionWeb. He happened to list a broken laser pointer as a test. To his surprise, someone bid $14. Without much ado, Omidyar mailed the bidder to tell him that it was damaged. Breaking with the convention, the person replied he knew that and he collected damaged laser pointers. The rest, as they say, is history. eBay embarked on a professional journey to sell anything and everything-a blend of omnipresence and omnipotence. There is a sense of antiquity to the famous little secrets. Counting on the marketing gambits and evolutionary tactics, these celebrated companies have won the hearts of their customers by going overdrive, only to bring laurels.