Business stories can hide as much as they reveal when they focus only on a founder and a final result. This collection examines specific decisions, practical constraints, workers, customers, and collaborators. Read for the choices that can be checked against sources; an account of one venture is not a formula for another person's financial decisions.
A question to explore: How did people respond to practical constraints while building a venture?
Showing 1–3 of 3 published stories
Generated editorial illustration; not a photograph or reconstruction of an actual Falcon 1 launch. Generated editorial illustration; not a photograph of Falcon 1.
After three Falcon 1 rockets failed, Gwynne Shotwell and the SpaceX team kept explaining, planning and pitching, and the fourth flight reached orbit in 2008.
Before you decide what a failure says about you, find out what it says about the attempt.
SpaceX's first three Falcon 1 rockets failed to reach orbit. After the third failure, Gwynne Shotwell went to Scotland to explain it to customers. In a Glasgow hotel, she later said, she also worked on a NASA proposal by phone. A NASA report later traced the third failure to a timing problem with a new engine. On September 28, 2008, the fourth Falcon 1 reached orbit. Later that year, NASA gave SpaceX a large supply contract.
Read how a team kept doing the next useful job while the outcome was still unknown.
Read the story →Generated editorial still life. It is not a photograph of Sara Blakely, her home, or an actual product-development session. Disclose as generated editorial artwork; do not describe as documentary photography.
When hosiery makers did not respond to her calls, Sara Blakely kept her day job, changed her approach, and found a mill owner willing to help build her first footless hosiery.
When one route keeps saying no, keep the goal and try a different way to reach the right person.
In 1998, Sara Blakely cut the feet off a pair of hosiery to wear under trousers. The look worked, but the fabric rolled up her legs. For months, she says, her calls to hosiery mills got no useful answer. So she kept her fax-machine sales job, took a week off, and drove to mills in North Carolina. No one said yes on the spot. About two weeks after she got home, a mill owner called and agreed to help.
Read how a changed approach and helpful people turned an idea into a product.
Read the story →Generated symbolic illustration, not a portrait or documentary reconstruction of Mary Seacole or the British Hotel. Generated symbolic illustration; not documentary evidence.
When official wartime routes stayed closed, Mary Seacole used her skills, a business partner and her own money to reach the Crimea, and she paid a real price for it.
When officials say no, you can still find your own way to use your skills.
Mary Seacole wanted to help during the Crimean War. In her 1857 memoir, she says she asked to join the official nursing plans and was turned away more than once. So she chose to go on her own responsibility. With business partner Thomas Day and help from a medical friend, she set up the British Hotel, a store where people could buy supplies and rest. When the war ended, she said, she came home financially ruined.
Read how she changed her plan, who helped her, and what it cost.
