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xix2 : T H E E N D O F S U P E R M A N – D OINN’TTRBOED AU CHT IEORNO

G 3M, whose ubiquitous Post-it® notes were born in part from research
into very strong glues rather than the weak glue which characterises
the product familiar to us all today.

G Ray Kroc, a salesman whose disproportionately high sales of
milkshake machines to a particular hamburger joint in remote
California led him to discover that the two McDonald brothers had
perfected a fast-food operation before the term had been invented.

G Ingvar Kamprad, creative and iconoclastic founder of IKEA, for
whom expensive solutions were often signs of mediocrity. The key
was to ‘find simple solutions, scrimping and saving in every
direction. Except on ideas’.

G Stephania Alexander, who differentiated her plumbing business by
meeting the specific needs of women customers with a service
including crisp, clean uniforms; portable doormats; carpet
protectors; a guarantee on workmanship; plus up-front menu pricing
to avoid any stressful quibbles over mysterious ‘extras’.

G Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, who left his prestigious and
well-paid Wall Street job because of something he read in the
newspaper, namely that internet usage was growing by 2300 per cent
per year

G Darryl Mattocks, who founded the Internet Bookshop at the same
time as Amazon.com, but whose research, generation of options and
appetite for risk were considerably less than those of Bezos.

G Michael Bloomberg, whose close analysis of the online financial
information market made him realise that traditional products
focused on the needs of the purchasers, the IT managers, not the
actual end-users, the analysts and traders.

G Bette Nesmith, whose analogical thinking was better than her typing
– she transferred to her erratic typing the insight that the window
artists decorating the bank where she worked corrected their
mistakes by painting over their errors. Liquid Paper was the
eventual result.

G Steve Millar, managing director of Australian wine company BRL
Hardy, whose background in finance and consumer products
allowed him to turn conventional industry thinking upside down.

G Craig Johnston, professional footballer and developer of the
Predator, the world’s best-selling football boot, worn by the likes of
David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane.