Do you have a great idea right now? In fact, your idea is so great you have actually acted on it. However, it does not seem to be gaining any traction. Should you give up on it? And if so, when?
400,000+ people annually post pictures of themselves holding a Solo cup. It is as important to have at parties and family functions as your favorite snack or beverage. Solo cups are so popular that in 2012, Dart Container purchased the product/company for $1 billion.
So how did this product become so ubiquitous?
In the 1910s, over 100 years ago, the city of Chicago banned “common drinking cups” because of the germs they were known to spread. However, approximately 20 years later, Leo Hulseman left what would be known as the Dixie Cup Company and started his own business called Paper Container Manufacturing. He would begin selling paper drinking cones.
As any entrepreneur knows, he needed equipment to manufacture his product. He purchased a machine from a Czechoslovakian immigrant named George Method Merta which would automatically make the paper cones. George’s wife Bozena then made a suggestion which changed the industry forever. She recommended calling the products “solo” cups because you could only use them once.
We now look on Hulseman’s idea as genius but it did not begin that way. If fact, it was approximately 40 years later, the 1970s, before Leo’s son, Robert, launched the plastic cup we all know and love today. And the rest, as they say, is partying history!
Here’s the leadership lesson:
Great leaders are almost always great thinkers as well. One of the things great thinkers have are great ideas. But not all ideas are immediate successes.
Thomas Edison received the patent for the light bulb on January 27, 1880 after much trial and error. A reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I haven’t failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The idea of artificial light was an idea Edison knew was worth holding onto.
Here are some things you should know about great ideas:
- Great ideas lead to other great ideas.
- Great ideas are often birthed in solitude but mature in collaboration with others.
- Great ideas are only great if they benefit others.
- Great ideas need a great plan to become fully-realized.
- Great ideas are sustainable so don’t give up on them.
So do you have an idea as great as artificial light or solo cups? And are you perplexed as to why your idea hasn’t scaled exponentially?
Here is what Leo Hulseman and Thomas Edison would tell you – stay with it! Don’t give up on your idea! It may just change the world.
Thanks to Morning Brew for much of the historical data contained in this post. For a high-quality daily newsletter with down-the-middle information on business and culture, you can subscribe for free by clicking HERE.
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