Start-up stories: how some of the world's most successful businesses began

From Nike and Adidas to Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, SUBWAY and Ben & Jerry’s, even the most mighty businesses have humble beginnings.

In 1964 University of Oregon athlete Phil Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman started Blue Ribbon Sports as a distributor for Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger, with sales made at track meetings from Knight’s car.

Just do it 

Business was encouraging that first year, with turnover of $8,000 from 1,300 pairs sold. In 1965 the company grossed $20,000 and a year later in Santa Monica it opened its first store. In 1971, the business was renamed Nike (”Ny-kee”, after the Greek goddess of victory) by the business’s first employee Jeff Johnson and launched its own footwear, bearing the now globally famous swoosh motif, designed by student Carolyn Davidson, who charged just $35.

By 1980 Nike had won a 50 per cent share of the US athletic shoe market. Headquartered in Washington County, Oregon, in 2014 Nike employed approximately 56,500 people and operated more than 850 retail stores worldwide, with global revenue amounting to some $27.8bn (£18.3bn).

Drei Streifen 

In the early 1920s Adolf Dassler began producing sports shoes from his parents’ house in Bavaria. In 1924 his brother Rudolf joined the business, which became Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik. During power shortages, the brothers had to use pedal power to keep machinery running.

Soon, top athletes were wearing the Dasslers’ running shoes, including the iconic Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Shortly before WW2 the Dasslers were selling more than 200,000 pairs of sports shoes a year.

The brothers had a major falling out, which led 49-year-old ‘Adi’ to set up Adidas on 18 August 1949 and register a shoe bearing the famous Drei Streifen (three stripes). Rudolf had already set up Puma (its sales in 2014 were €2,972m).

Adidas Group sales in 2014 totalled €14.8bn (£10.7bn). The Group includes Reebok(founded as the JW Foster and Sons shoe company in 1895 in Bolton) while also owning 8.3 per cent of Bundesliga superstars FC Bayern Munich.

Caramel-coloured liquid 

In 1886, as the Statue of Liberty was being constructed, Atlanta pharmacist John S Pemberton “stirred up a fragrant, caramel-coloured liquid”. He took it to the nearby Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water. Customers really liked the new drink, so Jacobs’ Pharmacy sold it for five cents a glass.

Frank Robinson, Pemberton’s bookkeeper, named the mixture Coca-Cola and wrote it out in his distinctive handwriting, which remains today as one of the world’s most recognised logos.

There are now 1.9bn servings of Coca-Cola Company products sold every day. Coca-Cola made total global revenue of $8,264m in 2014, with a gross profit of $2,973m.

Food for thought 

In 1940 Dick and Mac McDonald opened their McDonald’s Bar-B-Q restaurant in San Bernadino, California. Now, McDonald’s meals and drinks are available from 36,000 locations worldwide, eaten by 69m customers in more than 100 countries every day (source: McDonald’s).

In Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1965, 17-year-old high school graduate Fred DeLuca was looking for a way to pay his university tuition fees. At a BBQ his friend Dr Peter Buck suggested opening a submarine sandwich shop similar to one he had seen and kindly stumped up $1,000 to help start the business. Pete’s Super Submarines opened in August 1965 and more outlets followed. The business was renamed SUBWAY® in 1968. There are now more than 37,000 SUBWAY® stores in 100 countries, all independently owned and operated by franchisees.

Cream rises 

Having taken a “$5 correspondence course in ice cream making from Penn State” and with $12,000 investment (”$4,000 of it borrowed”), childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened their first ice cream shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont in 1978. Previously, they’d briefly considered starting a bagel business.

In 1980 they started selling pints of ice cream to grocery stores and restaurants from the back of Cohen’s old VW Squareback wagon. This transformed the business. A wholly owned subsidiary of Unilever since 2000, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is now available in 33 countries. Always a company willing to try new things, Ben & Jerry’s launched a range of vegan ice creams in 2016, available in a range of flavours.

• This blog appeared originally appeared on the HSBC Knowledge Centre website and was commissioned by Atom Content Marketing.

What do your branding colour choices say about your business?

When it comes to your corporate identity, which is, basically, the visual expression of your brand personality, your colour choices are crucial.

As explained on the UXPlanet.org: “Colours hold power to influence your audience’s feelings and behaviours. They are a vehicle for meaning and sense.” Moreover, choosing the right colours will “help [to] convey your personality, while creating an emotional connection with your audience. In contrast, the wrong colours can mislead people about who you are and deter the ones that you would like to attract.”

In other words, the colours you choose for your corporate identity, showcased in everything from your letterheads and invoices to signs, packaging, staff uniforms (possibly) and your website, will help to shape perceptions of your business. So, what do your colour choices say about your business?

Red

According to www.colormatters.com: “Red is the colour of extremes. It’s the colour of passionate love, seduction, violence, danger, anger and adventure.” Red captures our attention; it’s one of the most visible colours.

Marketing agency CityGro goes as far as to say: “Red raises the blood pressure and makes people hungry” (which is possibly why so many food brands use red). Red is reportedly used by 29% of the world’s top 100 brands in their corporate IDs.

• Did you know?

Approximately 77% of the world’s country flags feature red, which is the international colour for stop. Red is considered a very lucky colour in China.

Blue

“Blue is cold, wet, and slow” in contrast to “red’s warmth, fire and intensity”, www.colourmatters.com tells us, adding that “blue has more complex and contradictory meanings than any other colour”. While dark blue signifies “trust, dignity, intelligence and authority”, bright blue signifies “cleanliness, strength, dependability and coolness”, with light blue signifying “peace, serenity, the ethereal, spiritual and infinity”.

While blue connotes sadness, it also signifies safety, reliability, tradition and convention – which partly explains why it’s the most commonly used corporate ID colour (it’s used by a third of the world’s top 100 brands). Blue is believed to suppress our appetite, which is why it’s rarely used to market food brands.

• Did you know?

More than half (53%) of the world’s flags feature blue. About 8% of people on Earth have blue eyes.

Green

Green signifies growth, rebirth and fertility. It also has associations with nature and the environment, of course, as well as being “go” to red’s “stop” in traffic light systems. Green also suggests vitality, healthy living and freshness, which is why many supermarkets use it.

According to BournCreative.com: “Green is soothing, relaxing and youthful. Green is a colour that helps alleviate anxiety, depression and nervousness”. Green also “brings with it a sense of hope, health, adventure and renewal, as well as self-control, compassion and harmony.”

• Did you know?

In Ireland, green is thought to be a lucky colour, while it’s considered a holy colour in Islamic countries. Dirty jokes in Spain are described as green jokes.

Yellow

According to www.colormatters.com: “Yellow is the most luminous of all colours… It captures our attention more than any other colour. It’s the colour of happiness, optimism, enlightenment, creativity and sunshine.”

However, in some cultures, yellow is associated with “cowardice, betrayal, egoism and madness”. BournCreative.com says: “Yellow helps activate the memory, encourage communication, enhance vision, build confidence and stimulate the nervous system”.

• Did you know?

In China, “adult films” are referred to as “yellow movies”. In Japan, yellow represents courage.

Other colours

Orange (according to www.colourmatters.com) “symbolises energy, vitality, cheer, excitement, adventure, warmth and good health”, while it can also apparently “suggest a lack of serious intellectual values and bad taste”. Orange is also thought to stimulate the appetite – something that can’t have escaped Sainsbury’s attention.

Light purples are “light-hearted, floral and romantic”, with darker purples “more intellectual and dignified”. Purple is also associated with decadence, conceit, snobbishness and mourning.

According to citygro.com, pink is “feminine, innocent and gentle”, representing “innocence and delicateness”. Brown is “natural, earthy and rough”; it’s used to “represent construction and depth”. And while white signifies “peace, purity and cleanliness”, black is distinctive, sophisticated and classic; it’s serious and has authority.

• Did you know?

Only two countries have purple in their flag – Dominica and Nicaragua. Black is an “achromatic colour” – a colour without hue – as are white and grey.

Choosing colours

Your colour choices should be guided by your business’s personality and how you want it to be perceived. According to Canva.com, Richard Branson chose Virgin’s vibrant red colour to encourage his customers to be “bold and confident, mirroring his own distinct business methods. Coca-Cola shares this approach, using red to appear energetic, vibrant and memorable”.

Offering advice, it adds: “If you want someone to be excited or energetic while browsing your website, consider bold colours [such as] red, yellow or orange. Or, for a calming effect, try pastels or nature-inspired blues and greens.” Looking at your competitors’ colour choices may help you to choose the right corporate ID colours, although, obviously, you need to set yourself apart (and their choices may not be effective). You can take influence from successful brands, of course.

It’s often said that there is no such thing as “bad colours”, although bad colour combinations certainly do. Some colours work well together, others don’t. There are colour theory rules, and once you’ve decided on a main colour, a colour wheel may help you to decide others (some website-design software and templates provide helpful set colour palettes).

Colour palette

It’s not wise to use too many colours in your corporate identity. Less is most definitely more. And as with most things in life and business, simple is often best. According to Matt Solar’s blog on the Marketo website: “95% of the [world’s] top 100 brands only use one or two colours.”

As explained on Canva.com: “Many designers recommend using the 60-30-10 rule, which suggests you choose a palette of three colours, using the ratio of 60%, 30% and 10%”. Once you’ve chosen your colours, you can put them together on a mood board, to gain a better idea of how well they work together and what emotions they evoke.

Not everyone has an eye for colour, of course, but creating the right corporate identity is very important. So, budget permitting, you could always pay an agency or freelance to create your corporate identity. If so, set a budget, get at least three quotes for comparison, check out their work for other small businesses, understand exactly what you’ll get for your money and stick to your budget. You can create a highly impressive corporate ID, even on a tight budget.

• This blog appeared originally on the Manage My Website website.