Everyone knows the story of the humble Post-It Note, and how it represents an idea’s ability to evolve and flourish.
Some people would even hold up Post-It Notes as a symbol for innovation itself, much like the lightbulb is a symbol for an idea.
Yet what hardly anyone knows is that Post-It Notes were amazingly close to the same fate as 96% of other innovations: complete failure.
In the video above, we hear about the fascinating story of what it took for Post-It Notes to become a household name, and one of the best-selling products of all time.
We learn that some of the legends of how the Post-It Note was developed are indeed true.
Legend #1: The adhesive formula was a mistake, and was supposed to be super-strong
This is apparently true, as in 1968 3M’s Spencer Silver was working on developing an ultra-strong adhesive for use in aircraft construction. Instead, a mistake led to the new adhesive called acrylate co-polymer microspheres, which were a weak, pressure-sensitive adhesive.
However, they had the unique characteristics of the microspheres being incredibly strong and resisting breaking, and sticking at a tangent to the surface, which meant that the sticky substance could be peeled away without leaving residue and reused.
Legend #2: It only found its calling when used by someone else to keep track of his hymns in church
This is also tue. Art Fry was working at 3M and was aware of Silver’s reusable adhesive. He also sang in a church choir and had a regular problem of losing his hymn notes in his church song book.
Fry was then the person to suggest using the adhesive on the backs of paper so that they could be stuck and removed without leaving residue.
The ugly truth of apparent failure
What most people don’t know about is the fact that nobody believed in this product for decades, and many people struggled to find a profitable application for the technology.
After the initial discovery, 3M management didn’t see value in a non-sticky adhesive, and so it did not have any internal senior support. This lasted for 5 years until 1973 when a change in management allowed Silver to convince the new products laboratory manager Geoff Nicholson to give it a go. But the only marketable product idea they could come up with was a reusable bulletin board to stick papers to. This was shelved as sales of bulletin boards were not high enough to make this a profitable product.
Even after Fry suggested it should be the adhesive on the paper itself, the product then spent several more years in development as the scientists tried to find a way to get the glue to stick to the paper and not come off when it was then attached to another object.
Even after this problem was solved, senior management still didn’t see the commercial viability of the product and shelved it for several more years, even though it was extremely popular within the company.
It wasn’t until four years later in 1977 that the product was finally tested for real-world sales for the first time, with a limited launch in 4 cities to see if anyone would buy it.
Hardly anyone bought it, which appeared to prove to management that they were right to not believe in the product for so long.
Ultimate success
Fortunately, Nicholson didn’t give up quite so easily, and thought that the reason the product didn’t sell was because it was new and people didn’t understand its value before buying.
So a year after the flop in 1978, 3M tried one more time by sending out large numbers of free samples to companies for them to try, and then tracking how many of them re-ordered additional units.
To many people’s surprise, almost 90% of companies given samples re-ordered the product, which finally showed there was demand.
And the rest is history.
So even though everyone knows Post-It notes as an amazing success story, what they forget is that it took more than 10 years for the product to finally get the internal support to reach its target market.
Sometimes, you just need a dedicated internal team who really see the value in something to keep pushing and improving a product until they find a way that shows the right value for it to become a successful innovation.
Nick Skillicorn
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[…] The TRUE story of Post-It Notes, and how they almost failed Idea to Value […]
[…] around at 3M for nearly a decade, through several failed launches. Finally, the company decided to give away samples to see if they could kick-start its […]
[…] around at 3M for nearly a decade, through several failed launches. Finally, the company decided to give away samples to see if they could kick-start its […]
[…] The real story behind Post-Its is a fascinating story about failure that turned into success. […]
[…] validating intrapreneurship. Companies want to replicate the success of lightbulb moments such as 3M’s Post-it Note, but they should not forget that it took a decade for Post-its to become commercially successful. […]
[…] https://www.ideatovalue.com/ […]
[…] it is an organizational tradition to pass on stories of famous failures to new employees – the story of the Post-It being the most popular of them […]
[…] validating intrapreneurship. Companies want to replicate the success of lightbulb moments such as 3M’s Post-it Note, but they should not forget that it took a decade for Post-its to become commercially successful. […]
i learnt NOTHING
[…] it took consumer products company 3M some time to come around to the idea, its Post-it Notes were actually an employee’s alternative to reusable bulletin boards. When the worker kept losing […]
[…] What’s usually left out from the story is that the Post-It note wasn’t actually born at that moment. […]
[…] What’s usually left out from the story is that the Post-It note wasn’t actually born at that moment. […]
[…] What’s usually left out from the story is that the Post-It note wasn’t actually born at that moment. […]
[…] on a test and stick it on the sheet. The students need to mark a part in the text boot – sticky post-it. Do you need to remind yourself of that parent-teacher meeting in two days? Stick the post-it note […]
[…] What’s often overlooked from the story is that the Put up-It notice wasn’t actually born at that moment. […]
[…] innovation, and game-changing brand building – the Post-It note. In 1968, 3M researcher, Spencer Silver, researched a durable adhesive for aircraft application. A mistake led to a new adhesive that was […]
Nick! Noah here… do you know the story behind there pop-up line? I always thought that the customers started alternating the colors and redoing the packs in this configuration as a kid and now post it sells them this way, is this true?
No idea, I can imagine some people did it themselves, although whether the inspiration then came from inside or outside the company, I will never know 😉
[…] https://www.ideatovalue.com/insp/nickskillicorn/2017/04/true-story-post-notes-almost-failed/ […]
[…] 3M’s is another example. A massive conglomerate but their whole brand is built around science and innovation. The story of 3M post-it notes is a good example of bias towards success stories in innovation. The short version goes that they were attempting to create a strong adhesive and accidentally discovered a weak one that peeled off everything. They were about to throw the new glue away before realising the potential for a removable adhesive, and the amazing post-it note was born. […]
[…] Post-it notes are a great example of how a failure can lead to massive success. In an attempt to create a super strong adhesive for the airline industry, one scientist at 3M instead created acrylate co-polymer microspheres, aka the sticky stuff on post-it notes- one of the best selling products of all time! For more details on the 3M failure that led to their best selling product, check out “The TRUE story of Post-it Notes, and how they almost failed” […]
[…] siempre salen como se esperaba. Algunos fracasos pueden convertirse en grandes éxitos; por ejemplo-Notas Post-it. Los experimentos nos permiten probar una hipótesis y aprender cosas nuevas. Experimentar con el […]
[…] Like many great inventions, Post-Its started with a fail. In 1968, inventor Spencer Silver was attempting to create an adhesive strong enough to use in aircraft construction¹. Instead, he made an adhesive that was weak and pressure-sensitive. Then he failed repeatedly to find an application for it; he even tried using it for a sort of sticky bulletin board, but that sticky side collected dust too quickly to stay sticky for long². […]
[…] Almost every business person in the world knows about our uses 3M Post-It Notes. Post-It Notes have made many millions, but they came about as a result of problems. It’s a great story; check it out here: Idea to Value. […]
[…] discovered by accident and first used to bookmark pages in a hymnal, most people don’t know that 10 YEARS passed between hymnal use and market success. In that decade, the project was shelved twice, […]
[…] Em 1968, o Dr. Spencer Silver, um cientista da 3M, estava tentando desenvolver um adesivo ultaforte para uso na construção de espaçonaves. […]