Post it which sells in over 100 countries did not come out as a planned innovation. It came out of aberration. Failure is just a byway for another innovation
Post it was failed formulation for a glue. It stuck but not hard enough causing temporary removable sticking. and became useful for posting of notes and music notes in a musical instrument
Sometimes great invention come from a solution to a problem: "What pisses you off?"
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The “Post-It Principle”: How a Failed Glue Accidentally Stuck a Company Together
In 1968, a chemist at 3M named Spencer Silver was trying to invent a super-strong adhesive.
Instead, he made the opposite… a weak, pressure-sensitive glue that barely stuck to anything.
It was useless.
Or so everyone thought.
For years, he tried convincing other departments to use it. Nobody cared.
“Who wants a glue that doesn’t stick?” they laughed.
Then one day, another 3M employee named Art Fry faced a totally different problem.
He sang in his church choir and kept losing his bookmarks in the hymnal… they kept slipping out.
He remembered Spencer’s “failed glue” and had an idea:
What if he used it to create reusable sticky notes that could stay in place without tearing the paper?
The first prototypes were small yellow squares… simple, cheap, and oddly satisfying to peel and place.
3M called them Post-it Notes.
They became one of the most successful office products in history… used in more than 100 countries, generating billions in sales.
The Marketing Lesson:
That’s why:The biggest breakthroughs rarely come from invention.
They come from reinterpretation.
Spencer didn’t create something new… he saw something wrong in a new way.
That’s the power of repurposing mistakes.
• Netflix didn’t invent movies… they reimagined distribution.
• Uber didn’t invent taxis… they reimagined access.
• Airbnb didn’t invent travel …they reimagined trust.
Innovation isn’t about starting over.
It’s about seeing overlooked value in what already exists.
The Nerdy Takeaway:Failure isn’t the end of the story…it’s the raw material for your next breakthrough.
The “Post-It Principle” proves that sometimes your worst idea just needs the right problem to make it brilliant.
So the next time something doesn’t work…
Don’t throw it away.
