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The World’s Greatest Startups? Happy Accidents
Nobody asked for Nutella. $19.2B later, here we are.
Most startup ideas suck.
Not because you’re not smart. Not because the market’s saturated.
But because “genius ideas” don’t come from thinking.
They come from motion.
We’ve been sold the myth of the visionary.
The founder who stares at the ceiling until “Eureka!” The next Uber falls into their lap.
Let me save you some time: that founder doesn’t exist.
And if they do, you probably shouldn’t copy them.
Take Nutella, for example.
That chocolate hazelnut spread that has dominated breakfast tables worldwide wasn’t a business plan.
Was it conceived through careful market research? Focus groups? An MBA’s strategic thesis?
Absolutely not.
It was born from constraint.
Story time…
During World War II, chocolate was scarce and expensive due to wartime rationing. So Italian pastry maker Pietro Ferrero threw in hazelnuts, abundant in the Piedmont region of Italy, to stretch what little chocolate he had left.
