answered question

4
Votes

3
Answers

M$1.00

jasoncalacanis | April 26, 2009 05:12 PM | in Business

What are some great origins of great businesses?

I'm writing a missive for my email newsletter (http://www.tinyurl.com/jasonslist ) about how to come up with great business ideas. What are some amazing stories of origins of great businesses or business ideas?

voted interesting: danielle, cjd, xds, sarabond

Report

| RSS

| Share

answers (3)

0
Votes

BEST ANSWER decided by votes | cjd | April 26, 2009 07:57 PM

COCA COLA

In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton concocted the Coca Cola formula in a three legged brass kettle in his backyard. The name was a suggestion given by John Pemberton's bookkeeper Frank Robinson.

It proved to be popular however the cost for the products resulted in him making a loss.

CADBURY

Cadbury's developed the first ever "Milk Chocolate bar" that used the chocolate recipe from Fry and Son and mixed milk in. It became a massive hit in Britain and abroad, especially with children who tended to dislike the strong taste of Fry and Son's first chocolate bar. He had originally planned to add orange juice and call it "Orange Twist" but chose milk calling it the famous "Dairy Milk".

NIKE

Nike was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports (who would want that on a T-Shirt?). It was created by a UoE athlete Philip Knight and Bill Borwerman his coach.

The company asked for lots of graphic designers to come up with a logo. Some ideas included a parrot, a tiny robot and a banana. However it ended up with the famous swoosh and renaming the company Nike after the Greek God.

source(s):
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/coca_cola.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.#Origins_and_history

http://www.cadbury.co.uk/cadburyandchocolate/historyofchocolate/Pages/choco...

Tip cjd for this answer | Permalink | Report

Voted as best: sarabond, sunpat, demanda, marien_me, masontx

Comment

0
Votes

lon | April 26, 2009 07:00 PM

In addition to selling a great product (Sam Adams...delicious!), the Boston Beer Company has an interesting story. The recipe was allegedly developed by 1860 by Louis Koch and sold well through Prohibition, when of course the sale of beer was outlawed. Koch's great-great-grandson Jim Koch started selling the beer again in the 1980s through his Boston Beer Company, which he co-founded alongside Joseph Owades, the brewer credited with "inventing" light beer.

Koch's timing was perfect. Sam Adams started taking off just as America's love affair with craft brewing was getting started. The company is now the largest American-owned brewery producing 1,358,000 barrels of beer, in 17 varieties, each year.

(Trivia: The figure depicted on bottles of Sam Adams is not Sam Adams, but Paul Revere.)