18 Great Businesses

Nearly 20 years ago, I read a simple book called "100 Great Businesses and the Minds Behind Them". I was fascinated by the origin stories of many products and services we use. This book tells the stories of entrepreneurs, primarily innovators with groundbreaking products, who created some of history's largest and most valuable businesses. Although some of those products are no longer around, I'll share the stories of 18 of them in these posts. These are the ones I found most interesting.

1. Liquid Paper

The history of this product began with Bette Graham, a secretary at a Texas bank. One day, she noticed workers painting the bank's windows for the holidays. She realized that when they made mistakes, they only painted over them with white paint. Inspired, she formulated a liquid that could correct errors. Over time, her colleagues realized the usefulness of the product. With the help of her son, she began manufacturing thousands of bottles of it until she sold the company to Gillette for $USD 47.5 million in 1979.

2. 3M and the Post-It Note

This company is known for its inventions, such as adhesive tape and disposable diapers. Spence Silver designed a tape that could stick and peel off without damaging surfaces. Art Fry found a use for it after noticing that the pages he used as dividers in a book kept falling out. With little interest from the company, Post-It notes began to be used internally before being tested in a town and launched on the market in 1980, where they became a great success.

At 3M, different inventions are given time to develop, even if they initially do not seem to have much potential and are not given much priority.

3. Sony

Sony's Walkman was developed without proper market research, designed hastily, with little new technology, and no apparent demand for it. Co-founder Akio Morita ordered its development, but it initially saw little success. However, word of mouth soon spread, and Sony had to double monthly production to keep up with demand.

Morita's strategy was to launch new products to the market, as he did not know what could be done.

4. Coca-Cola Company

John Stith Pemberton created the first batch of Coca-Cola by boiling cocaine, kola, alcohol, and sugar in a pot. The drink was initially marketed as a refreshment and medicine but lacked a solid marketing plan and was only sold locally. Asa Griggs Candler bought the company after Pemberton's death and invested heavily in an aggressive sales and marketing plan. He produced numerous products with the Coca-Cola logo and advertised extensively. In the early 200s, Coca-Cola sold 12,600 beverages per second, it's hard to find the number today, but a rough estimate says it is about 30,000 per second. In any case, that's a far cry from the 13 it sold daily in the beginning.

5. Nokia

When I read the Nokia story in 2005, what impressed me was their ability to adapt. Nokia began manufacturing boots and cables until, in the 80s, it built its first car phone (10 kg). The entry of Jorma Ollila promoted the company's focus on manufacturing cell phones. After the entry of Frank Nuovo as a designer, the phones became a success. In its first five years, Nokia's inventory increased by 2000 percent. At that time, Nokia was preparing for the third generation of cell phones, which would include Internet capabilities. Nearly 20 years later, Nokia has become an afterthought in the phone market, as Apple, Samsung, and many others have become dominant. This story demonstrates how a once-great capability can make you blind to innovation.

6. Wipro

What characterizes Wipro is the pragmatism of its owner, Azim Premji. While initially a vegetable oil manufacturer, the company began assembling computers for other businesses and later expanded into software and consulting. Wipro also offers "virtual offices," providing IT services over the Internet to Western companies at a fraction of the cost of hiring workers in the United States. Although I am not up-to-date on Wipro's current status, I visited their headquarters in Bangalore back in 2006 and came away incredibly impressed with their worldwide reach.

7. Samsung

Samsung was once considered a budget brand, chosen only when something better couldn't be afforded. However, a positioning strategy as technology innovators and a diverse range of products has helped Samsung maintain its position today.

In 1997, Samsung suffered during the Asian crisis and had to reduce costs and change many company policies. However, the DigitALL campaign, which cost around 1 trillion dollars, helped Samsung become the fastest-growing company in the world by 2003. Now, Samsung is a significant contributor to the digital world, offering products such as memory chips, cell phones, and televisions.

8. Amazon

Jeff Bezos recognized the opportunity for growth in his business by observing the Internet's staggering annual growth rate of 2300 percent. To start his Amazon.com portal, he convinced his parents to lend him $300,000 (taken from their retirement fund) and began the business from his garage in Seattle. Though the company suffered losses during the dot-com crisis, it rebounded by forming alliances with other companies to sell a wide range of products, from DVDs and CDs (which were widely popular in the 2000s) to toys, clothing, and electronic devices. Bezos' ultimate goal was to offer anything that could be shipped by mail. Twenty years later, it's safe to say that this goal has been achieved.

9. TiVo

Younger generations will never know the frustration of coming home to find their favorite show or sports game had already started or finished. TiVo solved that problem with a great idea: recording programs in a way that allowed freedom and saved time for its users in different ways. However, TiVo had problems starting out and suffered losses because people did not understand what it did.

After forming alliances with DirecTV and licensing deals with Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, and other companies, TiVo's subscriptions grew along with its sales. Although we consume media in many different ways today, TiVo was a lifesaver in the 2000s.

18 Great Businesses - Pt. 2 to be continued