History Main / HumbleBeginnings

* ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} started out as an unnamed recurring character drawn on the whiteboard of Creator/Scott Adams' cubicle while working as an engineer at Pacific Bell.

* ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} started out as an unnamed recurring character drawn on the whiteboard of Creator/{{Scott Adams|Cartoonist}}' cubicle while working as an engineer at Pacific Bell.

** The [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64 first]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other Creator/HALLaboratory staff worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The game wasn't even conceived as a crossover at first; Sakurai introduced the idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters midway through development due to his fears that the game wouldn't stand out in the crowded fighting game market without an already familiar cast of characters. The combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to achieve even greater success, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

** The [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64 first]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The game wasn't even conceived as a crossover at first; Sakurai introduced the idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters midway through development due to his fears that the game wouldn't stand out in the crowded fighting game market without an already familiar cast of characters. The combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to achieve even greater success, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

* ''VideoGame/FreedomPlanet'' started as a FanGame of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' with original characters that took inspiration from the frantic and over the top action games by ''Creator/{{Treasure}}''. When the team realized how much work was being put into the original characters and unique mechanics, they decided to remake the project as its own IP that was a celebration of the ''Platform/SegaGenesis'' library with a Sonic-influenced art style that became a successful franchise in its own right with [[VideoGame/FreedomPlanet2 a sequel]], widely praised as a unique series that does what ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight'' did for 8-bit games that FP did for Creator/{{Sega}} platformers.

** ''[[WebAnimation/Supermarioglitchy4sSuperMario64Bloopers SMG4]]'' began in 2011 as any other ''WebAnimation/SuperMario64Bloopers'' series on Website/YouTube, starting with a two-and-a-half minute video made by teenager Luke Lerdwichagul about Mario getting invited for cake and hearing [[MemeticMutation the cake is a lie]]. By 2017, Luke and his brother, Kevin, had improved their animation and storytelling skills so much that ''[=SMG4=]'' became a [=YouTube=] staple, raking in millions of views per weekly episode, and inspiring the brothers to start Glitch as their own successful indie animation studio.

* {{Website/Yahoo}}, which began in 1994 as a student project on the Stanford University site. As did Website/{{Google}}.

* ''VideoGame/AlienHominid'' and ''VideoGame/MeatBoy'', originally just random Flash games on Website/{{Newgrounds}}.

* ''Game Center Arashi'' was an early example of manga and anime focused on video gaming, and influenced many hobby series that would come after it. The choice to have its protagonist be a cartoony buck-toothed kid was a joke by Mitsuru Sugaya; he had drawn more conventional-looking designs for the lead to show to his editor, as well as a doodle of a boy woth enormous buck teeth in the corner. The doodle won out, and in Japan Arashi's face and wild posing continues to be associated with gaming.

* Gigi DG publicized ''Webcomic/CucumberQuest'''s humble origins as part of an AprilFoolsDay gag in 2014. For the day, they revamped the site as ''Kukobu Quest'', featuring their own art and writing from ten years prior.

* ''VideoGame/GeometryWars: Retro Evolved'', which was the UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade version of an EasterEgg MiniGame from ''VideoGame/ProjectGothamRacing'' originally created ''for testing the input system'', and has since become [[MorePopularSpinoff a lucrative franchise in its own right]].

* Creator/{{Rare}}'s Mr. Pants made his first appearance on their website's Survey page as a hastily doodled placeholder character. He eventually starred in his own UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance game.
* ''VideoGame/{{Parodius}}'' became the most popular of the ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' series' various spinoffs, but the inspiration for the cheaply-produced UsefulNotes/{{MSX}} game, which preceded the flashier, [[SequelDisplacement more popular]] arcade and console games, seems to have been the [[SillinessSwitch joke option]] of playing as VideoGame/{{Twinbee}} in ''Gradius'' by [[OldSaveBonus plugging cartridges for both games into one MSX]].
* ''VideoGame/FreedomPlanet'' started as a FanGame of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' with original characters that took inspiration from the frantic and over the top action games by ''Creator/{{Treasure}}''. When the team realized how much work was being put into the original characters and unique mechanics, they decided to remake the project as its own IP that was a celebration of the ''UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis'' library with a Sonic-influenced art style that became a successful franchise in its own right with [[VideoGame/FreedomPlanet2 a sequel]], widely praised as a unique series that does what ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight'' did for 8-bit games that FP did for Creator/{{Sega}} platformers.
* ''VideoGame/ShiningInTheDarkness'' was developed on NoBudget (as the developer admitted in a 2009 interview; despite being a first-party in-house title they were only given the bare minimum budget offered to 3rd-party developers) solely to pad out the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis' then-threadbare library of [=JRPGs=]. When Sega decided they wanted to create their own strategy RPG series to rival Nintendo's ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', they chose to revisit the world of ''Shining in the Darkness'' and [[VideoGame/ShiningSeries the rest was history]].

* Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie began developing the UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} operating system on the PDP-7, an under-powered minicomputer. Before development moved to the PDP-11 and added text-processing applications that made Bell Labs take more than an experimental interest in UNIX, it was little more than a set of utility programs supporting a port of ''VideoGame/SpaceTravel'', a game Thompson had originally written for a more powerful mainframe while working on MULTICS.

[[quoteright:350:[[Creator/{{Disney}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/disneystart.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:From a fledgling animation studio, to one of the world's biggest media conglomerates.]]

* The popular ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' series ''DR and Quinch'' began as a one-off ''[[{{Padding}} Future S.hock]]''.
* ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'' began as a series of superhero-themed softcore BDSM pin-ups that Adam Warren did as a commission to make money. However, he then found the people in them developing personalities, which gave him some plot ideas...
* Franchise/SpiderMan was treated as a throwaway character and put in [[ComicBook/AmazingFantasyNumber15 the last issue of a failing series]] because [[ItWillNeverCatchOn people thought he would be too weird for people to like]].

* Website/EBay began because the creator's girlfriend had some Pez dispensers she wanted to sell.

* Franchise/SpiderMan was treated as a throwaway character and put in [[ComicBook/AmazingFantasyNumberFifteen the last issue of a failing series]] because [[ItWillNeverCatchOn people thought he would be too weird for people to like]].
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': A SciFi {{comic strip}} repeatedly pitched by [[Creator/JerrySiegelAndJoeShuster two kids]] from UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}.

* Long before ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' was a global sensation, it was a series of bedtime stories told by an English clergyman named Wilbert Awdry as a way to entertain his very young son Christopher when he was ill with the measles. These bedtime stories came to be compiled in the first books of ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries''.

* Franchise/SpiderMan was treated as a throwaway character and put in the last issue of a failing series because [[ItWillNeverCatchOn people thought he would be too weird for people to like]].

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': A SciFi {{comic strip}} repeatedly pitched by two kids from UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}.

** ''[[WebAnimation/Supermarioglitchy4sSuperMario64Bloopers SMG4]]'' started in 2011 as any other ''WebAnimation/SuperMario64Bloopers'' series on Website/YouTube, starting with a two-and-a-half minute video of Mario getting invited for cake and hearing [[MemeticMutation the cake is a lie]], made by a teenage Luke Lerdwichagul one weekend. By 2017, Luke and his brother, Kevin, had improved their animation and storytelling skills so much that ''[=SMG4=]'' became a [=YouTube=] staple, raking in millions of views per weekly episode, and inspiring the brothers to start Glitch as their own successful indie animation studio.

* ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} started out as an unnamed recurring character drawn on the whiteboard of Creator/ScottAdams' cubicle while working as an engineer at Pacific Bell.

-->-- '''WebVideo/HonestTrailers''' for the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse[[note]]up until before ''Film/AvengersEndgame''[[/note]]

** The [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64 first]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game started out as a side-project that Creator/MasahiroSakurai and other staff at Creator/HALLaboratory worked on during weekends in an attempt to create an easy-to-pick-up fighting game. The game wasn't even conceived as a crossover at first; the idea of using pre-established Nintendo characters was introduced midway through development due to Sakurai's fears that the game wouldn't standout in the crowded fighting game market without an already familiar cast of characters. The combination of the recognizable characters and accessible gameplay turned the game into a SleeperHit in spite of its lack of budget. Thanks to better hardware and proper budgets, subsequent ''Smash'' games would go on to achieve even greater success, becoming {{Killer App}}s for future Nintendo systems and giving rise to yet another CashCowFranchise for Nintendo.

* Perhaps most famously, Creator/{{Nintendo}} started as a card company in the 19th century before moving on to toys and novelties before they moved to the VideoGames that made them an international name.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', originally a crudely-drawn series of shorts on ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'', has gone on for [[LongRunners more than 30 seasons]] and has spawned a merchandising empire, several {{video games}}, a [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie movie]] and [[Ride/TheSimpsonsRide ride]]. The characters themselves were knocked out in the waiting room where Creator/MattGroening was going to meet with executives. Originally, he was going to pitch a show based upon his comic ''ComicStrip/LifeInHell'', but he realized at the last minute that he might lose the rights to his own characters, so he quickly sketched a NuclearFamily based upon his own family.

* ''Madballs In Babo Invasion'' was the sequel to the one-man freeware program ''Babo Violent 2'', which was itself the formalized version of a ''networking test''.

* The game that preceded ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', ''Narbacular Drop'', was a school project at [=DigiPen=].

* ''VideoGame/MadballsInBaboInvasion'' was the sequel to the one-man freeware program ''Babo Violent 2'', which was itself the formalized version of a ''networking test''.

* The game that preceded ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', ''VideoGame/NarbacularDrop'', was a school project at [=DigiPen=].