The cookie that invented the chip.

In 1938 Ruth Wakefield chopped a Nestlé chocolate bar into her cookie dough at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Word spread. Nestlé noticed its chocolate bar sales spiking in one corner of the state, went to look, found the cookie, and in 1939 struck a deal to print her recipe on the wrapper. Then it scored the bar into 160 pieces and put a little chopper in the box. Only after all that did somebody at Nestlé think to invent the chocolate chip.

The one that really did melt.

In 1945 Percy Spencer stood near a Raytheon magnetron and the snack in his pocket went soft. He fetched popcorn, which popped. Then an egg, which exploded over a colleague. Within months he had filed the patent, and by 1947 Raytheon was selling the world's first microwave oven. Other engineers had noticed the magnetron warming things for years and simply moved their snacks. Spencer was the one who asked what else you could put in front of one.

The wallpaper nobody wanted.

In 1957 Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes sealed two plastic shower curtains together, trapping a grid of little air bubbles, and took the result to interior designers as daring modern wallpaper. Nobody bit. They tried again as greenhouse insulation. Nobody bit. Then in 1959 IBM needed to ship its new 1401 computer across America without it arriving in pieces. Same material, third customer. You know it as Bubble Wrap, and the company they founded to make it, Sealed Air, is now worth billions. They never changed the invention. They changed the question.

One key takeaway

Before you fix the flaw, find out who it's perfect for.

Fancy going deeper?

Spotting the thing everyone else walked past is the whole of our Innovation course, and getting it out of the building is our Intrapreneurship one. It's our tenth birthday, so use code 4224 at checkout for a little something off.