Printer Cartridge

Thomas did …

Thomas was unemployed and really frustrated. He’d worked for years in the low margin retail grocery food business against fierce rivals but now he was out of work and trying to print a proposal. It was not going well. He needed a new printer cartridge … but all the stores were closed as it was the Fourth of July Weekend. And that’s when Thomas had a great idea.

Leveraging his background in running supermarkets and his new frustration relying on small stores that often ran out of critical supplies, he came up with a new plan … a plan for a business that would be open longer with more convenient hours and be unlikely to run out of printer cartridges.

One night at a college basketball game Thomas ran into a former grocery rival he highly respected named Leo. Thomas told Leo about his plan … and Leo, who had recently sold his grocery store chain and was looking for a new investment, was so impressed and they decided to partner up.

Today, over 30 years later, the company Thomas and Leo started now has over 1,000 locations worldwide and annual sales of over $20 billion … and it never seems to run out of printer supplies or any other business “staples”.

Staples is a Great Idea because necessity often drives amazing invention.

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