5 Modern Companies with Bizarre Origin Stories

Not all companies start off with a solid game plan. Some people just wing it, learn as they go, and make necessary changes along the way. This may sound like a "diamond in the rough" story, but it happens way more than you might think.

#CompanieswithBizarreOriginStories #sideprojects

[bronsonstrange]

Simon, you should make a Side Projects video about the development of the L96A1 rifle. (Very) short summary: Three guys built a rifle and decided to enter it into a new British sniper adoption competition, and won. So these three guys now had to build thousands of these rifles. When two requisitions officers came to inspect their shop (aka garage), they actually rented out a large shop and took all their tools and rifles over there to cover up that there were only three employees developing the UKs new sniper rifle.

[Kari]

Tandy Leather Company is still in business. They have a store not far from my house, and I spent a lot of time there when my kids were in Scouts.

[sbsstorytelling]

My first pronunciation comment, Simon, and I'm sorry, but your pronunciation of 'Call-e-co threw me. We always pronounced it aa Co-'lee-co. Actually, it doesn't really matter, just caught me off-guard
Loved the vid regardless. Thanks!

[Markrspooner]

Nokia started out as a wood pulp mill in 1865.
Shell Oil started out 1833 selling oriental seashells (antiques before that) and then importing and exporting oriental seashells.

[kirdot]

This channel just keeps braking my thought pattern of I've seen and heard everything at my age. I love it!

[ignitionfrn]

0:55 - Chapter 1 - Marriott international
2:50 - Chapter 2 - Samsung
4:25 - Chapter 3 - Nintendo
7:35 - Chapter 4 - Avon products
9:40 - Chapter 5 - Tandy & coleco

[goldosprey]

Title: Modern Companies with Bizarre Stories
Me: Nintendo is gonna be there
Number 3: Nintendo

[matt_acton-varian]

The origin of Marriott was quite interesting. That was quite a shift. This video reminds me of a much smaller UK company called X-Lite Components. In the 1980s and 1990s they made quality machined mountain bike and Motocross components such as cranks, stems etc. Their product range also included a bike cleaning product called Muc-Off. Muc-off sold so well it became the company's dominant sales product, that when the original owner died, passing it on to his son, they changed the company name to Muc-off and focused solely on creating a wide range of cleaning, lubricating and polishing products to keep bikes, both machine and man powered, looking fresh and pristine.

[ItsJakeStuff]

Love that description - 'kids are fickle, meandering creatures, with no money of their own' 😅

[CartoonHero]

lol anyone else watching this just dying wanting to fix Simon's collar?

Hilton Hotels also had an interesting start. Though they have always been in the hotel industry since 1919 their first big break into tourism and hospitality that made them an international name and standard for hotels was cornering the market for in flight meals. They first started off providing "boxed lunches" for guests that where getting on a flight after they checked out, these lunches became so popular that airlines started having Hilton deliver them right to the airports to be served during the flight. This was a huge boom in their business and let them expand rapidly to what they are now. Their first 50 years while very successful was a very slow expansion and their success was based around the few properties they had doing very well and being very popular luxury accommodations, once they got on the inflight meals business though they went from successfully wealthy to obscenely wealthy in the space of less than a decade. They still to this day work with luxury airlines to provide high end meals for their flights.

[rhov-anion]

Me to my husband the computer nerd: "Ever heard of CALL-uh-co?"
Him: "Do you mean ca-LEE-co?"
Me: "Probably. It's Simon Whistler."

I just assume at this point that Simon's writers don't add pronunciation guides because they're American and assume EVERYONE knows how to say that word, and Simon continually proves the adage about when you assume.

[BaronessErsatz]

My dad and brothers were heavily into Boy Scouts, so Tandy Leathercraft products were in abundance down in the rec room for merit badge projects.

And Kyocera started as the Kyoto Ceramics Company.

Your drink is on me, Simon.

[drpattiethomas]

One of my first jobs was being an Avon lady. I was 18 years old. I remember I had to be fingerprinted and get a permit from the county to go door-to-door. I didn't sell much, but it did lead to cleaning jobs for several older clients in my territory. I made more money cleaning houses and eventually quit Avon. However, I kept the case for 30+ years. It was one of the best small suitcases I ever owned.

Two observations. I never thought of Avon as a MLM. We were not encouraged to find people to work under us, at least not in the 1970s and I always thought that was a characteristic of a MLM scheme.

Second, if Avon is the second oldest MLM company, what was the oldest? Amway?

[MrJayrock]

I’m a bit surprised that Peugeot didn’t make this list. They were a steel foundry, made pepper mills, textiles, bicycles, saw blades, cars, scooters and I think perfume as well at one point.

[SteveGillow]

Wow, I remember thinking the Trash 80 with a yellow screen was so much cooler than green.

[BA-gnqb]

Also, a small car company called Toyota, used to make Looms under the family name of Toyoda.
Changed the "d" to a "t" for luck.

[jasonburt]

I have one of the NEC Mah Jong sets from the 70's. And it is still a better quality than anything I have seen produced since then.

[CaseyBDook]

We had the Adam when I was a kid. It was our first home "computer".
We didn't get another one until we got an XT.
Oh the nostalgia. One hour to download a single grainy picture.

[twocvbloke]

There's still an online Tandy presence in the UK selling the cheap components the stores would have sold back in the day, given that Tandy UK was bought up by the Carphone Warehouse and just completely wiped out by them to favour selling mobile phones...

[ravertaking]

I was gifted a deck of hanafuda cards back in the mid 80s by a Japanese sailor whilst stationed in Hawaii. Never knew the name of them until now!