Items20The creator’s order
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Asa Griggs CandlerBorn 30 Dec 1851Candler was an Atlanta pharmacist and drug wholesaler who bought up the rights to John Pemberton's Coca-Cola formula between 1888 and 1891, and incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892, at forty. His contribution was the business, not the drink: aggressive advertising, coupons for free samples,…0i - 2
Henry RoyceBorn 27 Mar 1863Royce had already run a successful electrical crane and dynamo business in Manchester for twenty years when he built his first car in 1904, at forty-one. Meeting Charles Rolls that year led to Rolls-Royce Limited in 1906, when Royce was forty-three. His earlier firm's engineering discipline carried…0i - 3
Charles Ranlett FlintBorn 24 Jan 1850Flint was a veteran trader and arms dealer known as the father of trusts for organising mergers. In 1911, at sixty-one, he merged a time-clock maker, a scale company and Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine firm into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. He hired Thomas Watson to run it, and…0i - 4
Rose BlumkinBorn 3 Dec 1893Rose Blumkin had raised four children and sold secondhand clothes before opening Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1937, at forty-three, with 500 dollars borrowed from her brother. Low margins and plain dealing grew it into the largest home furnishings store in the US, and she kept working into her…0i - 5
Colonel SandersBorn 9 Sept 1890Harland Sanders had been a railway fireman, insurance salesman and service station operator before running a motel and restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky. In 1952, aged sixty-two, he franchised his pressure-fried chicken to Pete Harman in Salt Lake City, and after a new interstate killed trade at his…0i - 6
Ray KrocBorn 5 Oct 1902Kroc spent decades selling paper cups and then Multimixer milkshake machines, which is how he came across Richard and Maurice McDonald's busy restaurant in San Bernardino in 1954. At fifty-two he became their franchising agent, opened his own first outlet in Illinois in 1955 and later bought the…0i - 7
Momofuku AndoBorn 5 Mar 1910Ando had run several businesses and lost nearly everything when a credit association he chaired collapsed, before, at forty-eight, he developed flash-fried instant noodles in a backyard shed in Osaka. Chikin Ramen went on sale in 1958, and Nissin followed with Cup Noodles in 1971, when he was…0i - 8
Sam WaltonBorn 29 Mar 1918Walton learned retail as a J. C. Penney trainee and ran Ben Franklin variety-store franchises in Arkansas for seventeen years, with a loan from his father-in-law for the first. He opened the first Walmart in Rogers in 1962, at forty-four, after the franchise company rejected his discount idea.…0i - 9
Mary Kay AshAsh spent twenty-five years in direct sales, with Stanley Home Products and World Gift, and retired in frustration at being passed over for men she had trained. In 1963, at forty-five, she put her 5,000 dollars of savings into Mary Kay Cosmetics, with her son Richard Rogers handling finance. Her…0i - 10
Bill BowermanBorn 19 Feb 1911Bowerman was a celebrated University of Oregon track coach of fifty-two when he and his former runner Phil Knight each put in 500 dollars to found Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, importing Japanese running shoes. It became Nike in 1971. His decades of coaching gave him the product ideas, from lighter…0i
