Scoring Big

James did …

James was a social worker … who was looking for a retirement pastime.

After getting hooked on a homemade game initially called Lexico created by a friend of his … James thought maybe he could market it. Now variations of Lexico had been rejected by several major game manufacturers so the inventor was more than happy to work out a royalty deal with James.

James made just a few adjustments … and came up with a new name … and then he and his wife starting producing the games in their house. The first year or so they sold 2,400 games and lost money.

But word of mouth kept generating interest … and sales continued to rise slowly. James and his wife scrambled to keep making the games in their living room … Then one day, so legend goes, the owner of the Macys Department store played the game on vacation, loved it and made sure his store stocked the game from then on. James and his wife could no longer keep up and outsourced production to a reputable manufacturer who eventually bought the rights to the game.

James and his friend the inventor had scored big.

Today, the game James initially marketed continues to sell about 3 million copies a year worldwide … Scrabble

Scrabble is a great idea because … innovation and perservence often spell success in business.