From a Mistake to Potential - Sticky Notes Story

Video Version - https://youtu.be/vrFP5pFeRoI

This time I am here to share an exciting story of one product we all have used in our life. The inventor invented the exact opposite of what was required. During the early days, it was seen as a solution without a problem.

Spence Silver invented this and had struggled with bringing his idea to life for 12 years. If you had ever felt your idea is not valued by your team, your manager, or investors, then this story is for you. 

In 1968 - 3M Office Scientist - Dr. Spencer accidentally invented a fragile glue, though the experiment was to find a hard glue that sticks very well. The glue he invented could retain their stickiness but with a "removability characteristic." He went to all of his colleagues and management about it; some called it useless, some laughed, and some questioned its usage on making this a profitable product.

After 12 years of struggle, he made this product a massive success, and we have 3 essential lessons to learn.

First Lesson is to Be Persistent and never give up - Many times we feel some are born genius or blessed or have strong luck favoring them to succeed. Take Edison's case, who failed many times on creating a bulb, Michael Jordon, who failed many times. Many of the entrepreneurs refined their initial ideas rigorously and failed many times before releasing an acceptable version of their product. Spencer never gave up on this idea for 10 long years - gathered feedback - refined it to make it even better.

The second lesson is Innovation with Collaboration - You can invent alone but cannot innovate being alone. 6 years later, in 1974 - Art Fry, another 3M employee who sings in the church choir, had a problem with his paper bookmarks falling out of the hymnal book, and he identified a use case for Spencer glue. He proposed Silver was sticking the glue at the wrong place, which is on the surface, and instead, they should add glue to the paper so it could be stuck on any surface - "Eureka moment"

The third valuable lesson is marketing - One may have an excellent product or team that delivers wonders in a company - unless it's marketed in the right manner, it wouldn't be successful. 

In 1977, 3M began test sale runs of this product in certain areas in four different cities, and none bought it.

The product didn't sell because it was new, and people didn't understand its value before buying. A year after the flop in 1980, 3M tried the sampling marketing approach, which is generally used in the food industry and very new to technology, by sending out large numbers of free samples to companies to track how many of them re-ordered additional units. 90% of companies re-ordered the product, and it became a massive success from then.

In 2003, 3M came out with "Post-It Brand," and more than 50 billion Post-it notes are sold every year.

When a mistake could be turned into a potential, why not your ideas make it big one day.

Don't give up, even if it takes years!!

Keep refining and try till you succeed!!