10 Insanely Successful Products That Started as Total Failures
By Gerri, Business Pundit, 23 January 2014.
By Gerri, Business Pundit, 23 January 2014.
The road to success is often a long and hard one, but that can be easy to forget when marvelling at the successes of behemoth companies that seem to rule the world. Today, Apple has become a household name and Dyson has become synonymous with “vacuum cleaner,” but it wasn’t always easy for these companies - and many others who struggled with failure before finally rising to success. Here are ten wildly successful products and companies that started out as total failures.
1. Apple
In August 2012, CNN Money declared: “Apple is now the most valuable company of all time.” This news comes as no surprise today, when the word “iPod” has become synonymous with mp3 player and when USA Today’s reporting that half of all households in the U.S. own at least one Apple product. Still, it wasn’t too long ago that this struggling tech company was going through one of its many ups-and-downs.
Apple had a rough road to success from its foundation in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Early offerings including the Apple III, the Lisa and the Macintosh were marketing and technological innovators, but were commercial failures until the rise of the desktop publishing market led to high demand for the Mac’s advanced graphic capabilities. Jobs was actually pushed out of his own company at one point after declaring quarterly losses and being forced to lay off 1,200 employees.
The exit of Steve Jobs and a series of high-profile failed consumer products made the 1990’s a tough decade for Apple. It was the iMac and the iPod which turned everything around. From there, everyone knows the story of Apple’s return to triumph, Steve Jobs’ return to the company he created, and Apple’s rise to the most valuable company of all time.
2. The Snuggie
As-seen-on-TV products are often ripe for mockery and are rarely huge commercial successes. The Snuggie is the exception to this rule. Buzz Feed reports that Snuggies have made more than US$500 million since becoming a viral sensation in 2009, and anyone who sees a blanket with sleeves on it is likely to call it by this distinctive brand name. It may come as a surprise to Snuggie lovers everywhere, though, that the Snuggie wasn’t the first on the market and that early versions including the Slanket were “shelf potatoes.”
There were actually quite a few pioneers in the field of sleeved blankets that preceded Snuggie to the market, including the Snug Mee, the n-a-p Cuddle Blanket, the NFL Huddler, and the Doxie CuddleRoo. How many of those have you heard of? If the answer is none, you aren’t alone. The second-best sleeved blanket, the Slanket, hasn’t even broken the million-mark in sales according to The Street, while the Snuggie has sold more than 20 million units. It was the Snuggie’s creative approach to marketing that caused the product to go viral and turned this silly failed product idea into a massive success.
3. Nintendo
Any child born after 1980 is intimately familiar with two plumber brothers named Mario and Luigi whose job it is to save the Princess. These signature characters helped make Nintendo into one of the most successful gaming brands of all time. The company, however, had some early failures at a time when the video market in the U.S. was struggling massively.
The Famicom was Nintendo’s first attempt at a cartridge-based video game system, but after a few months of selling fairly well, the consoles began to freeze and had to be recalled.
The Famicom was released only in Japan, and efforts to bring the system to the U.S. market were also troubled, especially when Atari refused to back the console and when Atari’s failure left the video game market in this country in shambles. In 1985, however, Nintendo release the Famicom in the U.S. as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
Wired reports that just 50,000 units of the first SNES consoles sold, which was half of the number manufactured. By the end of 1986, however, NES went national and a little plumber named Mario led the product to its massive success.
4. Bar Codes
If you’ve bought any product recently, from a pack of gum to a costly electronic item, you’ve probably seen a bar code on that item. Bar codes are so ubiquitous in our world that most people don’t even notice them anymore, much less think about who invented them and when.
Bar codes were invented in 1948 by Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. USA Today reports that the two men invented the products as students after hearing a grocery-store executive asking an engineering student how to capture product information at check out.
The bar code was born from this exchange and patented in 1949. The early bar codes were a series of concentric circles that relied on light reading, which was unfortunately impractical at the time since the computers of the day just weren’t advanced enough to utilize that type of technology.
No one really took notice of the humble bar code until IBM introduced a universal product bar code 25 years later. Since 1973, this universal bar code, born from a relatively useless invention decades before, has become a standard features on products worldwide.
5. WD-40
Have you ever used WD-40 to prevent rust or lubricate a squeaky hinge? If you have, you aren’t alone. The name WD-40 does, in fact, have an important meaning: it was the 40th attempt at creating a degreaser and rust protection solvent. As WD-40 explains on its “About-Us” page, the small lab in San Diego California working on the product for Rocket Chemical Company had numerous failed attempts before WD-40 actually began to work.
Although originally designed for use in the aerospace industry, once the scientists got the product working, employees began to sneak it out of the plant to use at home. To expand the product to the residential market, it was put into aerosol cans that were first sold in 1958. Today, the original WD-40 formula (the 40th attempt) has not changed and the lubricant and degreaser is the go-to solution for those who need lubrication and rust prevention.
6. Light Bulbs
On January 1, 2014, America said goodbye to the incandescent light bulb as new energy-efficiency standards went into effect that put an end to the manufacture of this staple of the lighting industry. The incandescent light bulb had a good run before it gave way to more energy efficient models like LED and CFL bulbs, and the basic bulb concept still lives on to this day albeit using different technologies.
The invention of the light bulb did not come easy, though, as Thomas Edison had 10,000 failed attempts before he finally invented the bulb that lights up so many lives. Edison had been told by his teacher that he was “too stupid to learn anything.”
7. Dyson Vacuum Cleaners
Building a better vacuum cleaner may seem like an odd goal to have, but that was the dream that James Dyson set out to accomplish. As soon as you hear James’ last name, it’s easy to see that he succeeded. The Dyson is one of the top selling vacuums of all time and, as the New Yorker reports, the Dyson vacuum company was worth US$1.6 billion in 2008.
While unquestionably a success story, the Dyson’s success was a struggle. James Dyson tested 5,271 prototypes (and that’s not a typo!) before he finally found a vacuum that worked. He also failed to find a European or American company who wanted to buy a license to his vacuum cleaner.
Eventually, Dyson gave up and created his own manufacturing operation in the summer of 1993. Just two years later, his Dual Cyclone DC01 was outselling the upright Hoover and was on its way to becoming a world-wide sensation in the vacuum business. One can only imagine that those Dyson approached to license his invention wish they hadn’t bet on the failure of this simple yet powerful product.
8. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
If you’re a fried chicken lover, you’ve probably tried the offerings by Colonel Sanders at least once in your life. Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC as the company is now called, has more than 13,000 restaurants worldwide and serves more than eight million customers in 80 different countries, all of whom are using Colonel Sanders’ famous recipe. In 2005, USA Today reported that the company was growing so fast in China that KFC opened an average of one new restaurant every single day.
With a KFC on every corner, it’s probably hard to believe that KFC inventor Colon Harland Sanders had his chicken recipe rejected more than 1,000 times before it was finally accepted by a restaurant. That recipe, with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, is now a treasured and highly-protected company secret that belongs to the popular fast food chain.
9. Ford
Ford Motor Company is more than just one of the great American car companies. Ford is also an innovator in business and as PBS reports, Ford created the first moving assembly line that was ever used for large-scale manufacturing.
This assembly line, in addition to changing the way the world does business, was actually created to solve a big problem that Henry Ford was having. Unfortunately, his first few vehicles failed when the company began in 1899 because the cars were way too expensive and were of poor quality.
Although car companies started by Henry Ford were a big failure at first (the Detroit Automobile Company, for example), today Ford is #44 on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Valuable brands.
10. Bubble Wrap
Bubble Wrap is one of the most popular packing materials and can also be great fun (who doesn’t love to pop the bubbles?) However, while you may use bubble wrap for your next move, it likely isn’t something you’d want to put up on your walls as wall paper. But that was the original use of the product according to USA Today, so it comes as no surprise that bubble wrap was an abject failure when it was first invented by Alfred W. Fielding and Mark Chavannes. Bubble wrap also failed when it was marketed as a product useful for green house insulation.
Fortunately, IBM rescued this product that no one wanted in order to keep its newly-launched 1401 computer safe during transport. Bubble wrap became an instant success as a packaging material and most people aren’t aware it started its life as a failed decorating tool.
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