These businesses started down one path, but changed direction just in time to become trailblazers in their category.
1- Ben & Jerry’s
After considering pizza, shish kebab, and fondue, the pair had what they thought to be a “Eureka!” moment — Bagels.
Click HERE to find out why they switched to ice cream.
2- Taco Bell
Glen Bell started with a fast-food window that sold hamburgers and hot dogs, but only added tacos to compete against the McDonald brothers.
Keep reading to find out how tacos became the main item on Bell’s menu.
3- Hasbro
This brand is world-renowned for a bevy of cherished toys, but in the beginning, Hasbro was in the business of textile remnants.
Find out how the Hassenfeld Brothers went from peddling leftover cloth to becoming the world’s largest toy maker with the help of some pieces of plastic and a potato.
4- Raytheon
At first this small band of inventors busied themselves trying to build refrigerators.
Look at how they went from refrigerators and radios to the sophisticated weaponry, Here
5- Wrigley’s
The famed gum and candy confectioner didn’t start out as a purveyor of sweets, but a pusher of scouring soap.
Read why the gum briefly disappeared from shop shelves, before making a comeback, Here.
6- Tim Hortons
Horton’s first foray into the restaurant business was with a string of hamburger joints near Toronto, Ontario.
7- Samsung
Businessman Byung-chull Lee opened a small trading company in Taegu, Korea, with a focus on trading fish, vegetables, and fruit to Manchuria and Beijing.
Lee’s company enjoyed moderate growth before the Communist invasion in 1950 forced him to start all over. Read how Lee came back with an astounding second act.
8- Nokia
Before it became a telecom powerhouse, Nokia started, however, with paper — and a wood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in southern Finland.
Click Here to read more on the back-from-the-brink move that helped transform Nokia.
9- Toyota
Read how Toyota took a detour to make fish paste and chinaware before forever changing the car industry, Here.
10- IBM
The seeds for the creation of what would grow to become one of the most successful, influential, and admired companies of the 20th century can be found in the merger of three businesses that fell under the original umbrella called International Business Machines (IBM.N)
Read more about IBM’s early years in the calculations business, and the company’s still little-known connections to Hitler’s Germany, Here.
Click Here to find out how the doughnut chain expanded its orbit.
According to MSN.Money
1. U.N. Climate-Change Summit
2. Cap-and-Trade Debate in Washington
3. Stricter Auto Fuel-Efficiency Standards
4. General Motors Goes Bankrupt
5. EPA to Regulate CO2
6. Biofuels Aren’t That Green
7. Factory Farming and Swine Flu
8. Obama’s Green Cabinet
9. China’s Green Stimulus
10. Nissan’s All-Electric Leaf
According to Time Magazine
1- You Say, “This Is My Dream Job”
2- You Trash Your Old Boss
3- You Ask About Vacation Days
4- You Drink Water or Coffee
5- You Look Hot
6- You Talk Salary
7- You Play It Too Cool
8- You Wear Jeans
9- You Don’t Turn Off Your Cell
10- You’re Late
According to Cosmopolitan
1. Solutions across all categories for all people on one website.
2. Opportunity to share your experience with others.
3. Great way to introduce your company to the public.
4. Great way to directly link potential clients to your market.
5. findsolve will advertise for you.
6. Great site for busy people to get answers.
7. Specific solutions for your specific problems.
8. Proven Solutions from across the globe.
9. Great form of direct communication.
10. You can join now and get 6 months free!
1 - Twitter is very worried about Facebook.
2 - Google wants to do a Twitter search deal very badly.
3 - Twitter does not want to be acquired.
4 - Twitter planned an IPO or sale of the company next year.
5 - Twitter doesn’t know how it’s going to make money.
6 - Microsoft is an unlikely Twitter-buyer and partner.
7 - Twitter execs prefer Tweetie on the iPhone and prefer Photobucket’s TwitGoo over TwitPic.
8 - Twitter is not content to become a small, profitable company.
9 - Twitter is shopping for other startups.
10 - Twitter execs fear the startup is understaffed.
From Tech Crunch, via Business Insider.
Here are some ways to make work a happier place for all.
1. Celebrate each “Rubik’s Cube” moment of accomplishment. Share the joy to multiply it.
2. As the bits of the cube start moving, keep communicating and coordinating.
3. Remain positive. Smiling takes fewer muscles than frowning and is contagious. Ignore skeptics unless easily converted.
4. Widen the circle of the informed. Involve people not usually included.
5. Find every supporter a task, however small. Show that you’re working for their goals, too.
6. Negotiate out of demands that don’t contribute to the goal. Keep doing what you must to keep your job, but simplify.
7. Get a Big Name to endorse giving it a try.
8. Discuss the idea informally to find others feeling the same way. Enlist them in the quest. Now they’re counting on you not to let them down. Describe it as an experiment that will benefit others. Incorporate feedback so that others hear their ideas in yours.
9. Be an entrepreneur from anywhere. Even if you don’t start a business (now), imagine starting a project that will improve your current job, workplace, or community.
10. Identify long-term personal purpose. Write a personal mission statement, to review often.
According to Bloomberg.com
1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. New York Yankees
3. Pittsburgh Steelers
4. Boston Celtics
5. Green Bay Packers
6. Dallas Cowboys
7. Los Angeles Dodgers
8. St. Louis Cardinals
9. San Francisco 49ers
10. San Antonio Spurs
According to the Bleacher Report
No. 1: Coca-Cola, up 3% to $68.73 billion
No. 2: IBM, up 2% to $60.21 billion
No. 3: Microsoft, down 4% to $56.65 billion
No. 4: GE, down 10% to $47.78 billion
No. 5: Nokia, down 3% to $34.87 billion
No. 6: McDonald’s, up 4% to $32.28 billion
No. 7: Google, up 25 percent to $31.98 billion
No. 8: Toyota, down 8% to $31.33 billion
No. 9: Intel, down 2% to $30.64 billion
No. 10: Disney, down 3% to $28.45 billion
According to the Chicago Tribune.com
1- eBay
2- Verizon
3- US Postal Service
4- WebMD
5- IBM
6- Procter & Gamble
7- Nationwide
8- Intuit
9- Yahoo!
10- Facebook
According to CNET.News
1) Great companies are constantly innovating and delighting their customers/users with new products and services.
2) Great companies are built to last and be independent and sustainable. Great companies don’t sell out.
3) Great companies make lots of money but leave even more money on the table for their users and partners.
4) Great companies don’t look elsewhere for ideas. They develop their ideas internally and are copied by others.
5) Great companies infect their users/customers with their brand. They turn their users and customers into marketing/salesforces.
6) Great companies are led by entrepreneurs who own a meaningful piece of the business. As such, they make decisions based on long term business needs and objectives not short term goals.
7) Great companies have a global mindset. They treat every person in the world as a potential customer/user.
8) Great companies are attempting to change the world in addition to making money.
9) Great companies are not reliant on any one person to deliver their value proposition.
10) Great companies put the customer/user first above any other priority.
According to avc.com
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