some great “it pays to think big” examples

May 28th, 2009

Barack Obama’s first job was at Baskin-Robbins, an ice cream parlour in Honolulu. 

 

The infamous Café Wha? in Greenwich Village was reputed to be the venue for Jimi Hendrix’s first gig as frontman with his band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.

 

 

Richard Branson’s first foray into business was a mail order record company. Soon after, he set up this modest record store in Notting Hill Gate.

 

 

Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google as a research project while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University. In 1998 they moved into Susan Wojcicki’s garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.

 

 

Before it became a computing power house, IBM used to manufacture and sell machinery ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders to meat and cheese slicers.

 

 

Lamborghini started out as a tractor-building company in the Italian village of Sant’Agata Bolognese.

 

 

When Nokia was first formed they produced a number of products including bicycle tyres, aluminium and Wellington boots.

 

 

William Harley and Arthur Davidson built their first motorcycle in a friend’s wooden shed in Milwaukee.

 

 

Ingvar Kamprad, aged 17, set up Ikea in a shed in Smaland, Southern Sweden. From here he distributed Christmas cards, packets of seeds and pens.

Entry Filed under: Think About It!