LARGE BUSINESS COMES FROM SMALL IDEA

LARGE BUSINESS COMES FROM SMALL IDEA

Large business does not have to come from great idea. There are many stories from successful people who started with simple idea in the past. However, they can be successful because of their creativity in developing that small idea and their bravery to innovate in taking risk.

You can see the success of Dr. Gideon Hartono, the founder of Apotek K-24, which was started from small idea: opening 24 hours pharmacy so that people can get medicine anytime they need with the same price during day or night. Business system of Apotek K-24 he created  is proven to be large business which can change the service trend of medicine purchasing in society, and it is proven to be developed quickly in all area in Indonesia.

Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker opened small coffee shop called Starbucks in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 was started from small idea: because they wanted to have fresh coffee. At that time, coffee shop was not a common thing because people usually drank coffee in their house. However, now starbucks grows to be a large business because it has 15.012 coffee shops that spread in 44 countries.

You obviously know Liquid Paper. This product was born because of the confusion of the founder, Bette Graham. When he was working as secretary, he often stressed because of his job in typing. You can imagine how confusing it is because he had to make sure that his typing is right and clean while he often mistyped.

One day, he accidentally saw a painter. Accidentally, the painter stained his work. He calmly repainted the stain with white paint.

From that experience, Graham got the idea to do the same thing. He tried to use water based white paint and thin brush to cover his mistake in typing. It worked. In 1957, when his friends knew it, Graham commercialized it so that he could sell up to 100 bottles in a month. Greatly, 15 years later the company he established sold at least five millions bottles in a year.

Success can also happen to someone who has ability to innovate and execute better towards the existing idea. Michael Dell is one of the examples.

He opened a business with simple idea, selling computer not to the distributor but to the customers. He cut the line from the distributor, so that the price of the computer could be pressed. He started to build customized computer in his boarding house and sold it with relatively cheap price by post office or mail order. In 16 years, the selling increased from 6 million dollars to 36.9 billion dollars. Dell Computer opened branch in London in 1987. Now it opened its branch across the world with more than 40.000 staffs.

Even so, the journey of Dell Computer was not that smooth. In 1993, Compaq, which was the leading company of PC selling, cut their price to compete with Dell. As the result, Dell Computer faced loss for about 65 million dollars in the first six month, that caused it to be almost bankrupt. Finally, Dell did a basic change in its business process which was called as ‘re-engineering’ in business by introducing E-Commerce. Dell started it by relying on speed. In 1999, ordering PC from Dell today and you would get it tomorrow. Meanwhile, computer with complex system would be delivered in five days.

The other innovations were mass customization approach that produced PC massively, so that it could reduce production budget per unit. Dell placed its component storage which was handled by its supplier that was located 15 minutes from its manufacturer. The shipping was handled quickly by email. Dell provided a very quick service by communicating with e-mail and website.

In 2001, Dell Computer was placed 23rd as the most amazing company in the world and in 2003 it was placed 4th in the world. Dell got real benefits from the usage of E-Commerce. Dell’s success story is hard to believe but it is real and started from small idea.

Pursue Your Knowledge

Fulfill your soul before you own the power. How do you get a bigger soul? You should not chase money but knowledge and experience. The further you chase knowledge, the richer you are. The further you chase money, the poorer you are. Actually, money lies behind knowledge.

How do we get knowledge and experience? The solution is to erase “giving up” from your dictionary. When you fall, just get up, fall again, get up again. Keep doing that and you will get stronger (both in knowledge and experience).

Great success can happen to anyone with any way. The important thing is you should be delicate and brave in taking risk.

Henry Ford, a multi rich, the owner of Ford car company once said, you can take all of my money and I will get it back in five years with my knowledge and experience.

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