This is a collection of 100
businesses. These businesses are not unfamiliar to us. We
know them as giants in
their own industries. Their contributions to the
communities and their own respective country are tremendous.
All the
businesses started humbly. Some of these businesses
started from scratch, some were family enterprises, others were partnerships,
etc. Every
Business actually started with a great idea which pushed the business
owner to another level.
Having great ideas and knowing what to do were the perfect
combination. The problems with financial, production, marketing, and so on had
to be tackled carefully. Every business went through some rough time. The
persistence and commitment showed by each business owner ought to be admired.
They used various approaches and strategies to overcome the problems they
faced.
An excerpt from ‘Red Bull’
…Mateschitz
took the health tonic, made it less syrupy, gave it more fizz, put it into a
sleek, slim can, and turned it into a ‘smart drink’ that claims to enhance
performance. He was not deterred by terrible market research that told him his
drink was truly disgusting. …
An excerpt from ‘Clarence Birdseye’
... Birdseye knew that there was great
potential in frozen food. But he had his work cut out for him to turn his idea
into a viable business. Not only did he need to get the technology right, there
was absolutely no infrastructure to support his product, no refrigerated vans
or train carriages, no supermarket freezers, and consumers’ homes could barely
keep fresh food cold for a day in their iceboxes, let alone keep frozen food
frozen. It was a big job, but he had the attitude that ‘just because something
has always been done in a certain way is never a sufficient reason for
continuing to do it that way.’
This is a short excerpt from ‘Howard Schultz, Starbucks’
…Schultz had great expectations for
Starbucks, though this enthusiasm was something that irked owners who were
passionate about their business but not about growth or change – two of
Schultz’s favorite things in life. The business would plod along for years
until the coffee-in-a-cup aspect of Starbucks would be realized.
The reader can feel the disappointment that each and every
entrepreneur had experienced in starting out and moving forward. There were
lots of obstructions along the way. As all these entrepreneurs were risk
takers, they believed in their own ideas and set their own realistic goals.
They dared to take the risks to move their businesses forward. They struggled
with financial and resources problems as well as competition from other similar
businesses. They all learnt from their mistakes and moved on. They invented new
products because they believed there were needs to do so. They did not bow to
pressures.
Take an excerpt from ‘3M and the Post-it Note’
…But the development of this practical,
original product was a slow process. Even five years after Silver created his
adhesive; commercialization of the Post-it Note was barely plodding along. Some
3M executives thought the Post-it Note would be competing with scrap paper and
therefore people would never pay for the 3M alternative.
Nonetheless,
Fry kept working on his pet project, setting up a machine in his basement that
could apply the sticky adhesive to rolls of paper. Fry has always maintained
that problems are par for the course in the innovation process….There are many more excerpts that I can post here. Yet the
book is the best when the reader can read it himself. The stories behind every
great business in this book are really touching. There are alsohidd