The First Product of 7 Famous Companies, Proof that Innovation is the Key to Staying

Products made by a company are the spearhead of business activities to make money, they can take various forms. To present the best products, it is necessary to conduct research, trials, and various other processes until the product can be accepted by the community so that it can be sold in the market. There's nothing wrong with doing various innovations to improve customer experience, even replacing the initial product that has been sold but doesn't sell well in the market is no problem.

The proof is that several large companies in the world are also doing it, some are improving the quality and features of the product, some are changing it to a completely different product. Well, if you are curious about what products were originally produced by world-renowned companies.

• 1. Before becoming a company that sells video games, Nintendo sold toys in the form of cards called Hanafuda

Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a company that sells toy cards in Kyoto, Japan. The card is given the name Hanafuda or flower card because it has a flower-shaped decoration. In the past, this game turned out to be popular among criminal gangs who like to gamble. Finally in the 90s, this company released video games such as Mario, Legend of Zelda, to Pokemon.

• 2. Before selling furniture, Ikea sold products in various forms with a mail order business system

Initially, the products sold by Ikea were quite diverse, ranging from stockings, jewelry, watches, pens, and photo frames. This business was started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad by mail order method. After a few years later, Kamprad only added a product in the form of his first furniture for sale. Ikea's first catalog was released in 1951 which made its name jump and had its first showroom in 1953.

• 3. Before being famous for technological products like now, Apple made the first product in the form of a computer

Every time a new product series is released, it is almost certain that Apple products will immediately sell well. The first product produced by this company turned out to be quite innovative in its time, namely a computer called the Apple I computer. This product is claimed to be the first computer in history to have a keyboard to type characters and appear on the screen right in front of them.

• 4. Samsung turns out to have a different story, this company actually started as a grocery store selling noodles!

This rival to Apple actually started as a grocery store founded by Lee Byung Chul in 1938. The shop is located in Taegu, Korea which sells noodles and other foodstuffs exported to China. It was only after the world war that the company expanded into more fields including electronics in 1969 where its first product was a black and white television.

• 5. Sony is indeed famous for its electronic products, but it turns out that the first thing that was produced was a rice cooker

Sony founder Masaru Ibuka had the idea of ​​creating home furnishings after the end of World War II. This idea arose because there are many houses that already have electricity but they do not yet have the furniture. Finally created a rice cooker with wood and aluminum at the bottom. Unfortunately, this product was never released due to several factors that caused the rice to be undercooked or overcooked.

• 6. If now Lego is mostly made of plastic, it turns out that the toys from this company were originally made of wood

Initially, Ole Kirk Christiansen who was a carpenter opened a building materials shop and carpentry workshop. He uses wood scraps to make children's toys with shapes ranging from trains, cars, and ducks with wheels that open their mouths when pulled. He then made plastic Legos which were rejected by many supermarkets because the products were still foreign.

• 7. Toyota actually started by producing a weaving machine which was already full of innovation

Toyota was founded by a creator of various automatic and manual weaving machines named Sakichi Toyoda. At that time, the most powerful machine ever created was the Toyoda Automatic Loom Type G which had high speed and various other innovations. For the car itself, Toyota created a passenger car with the name Toyoda Model AA which uses a type A engine.

Wow, it turns out that the first products of some of these well-known companies are quite different from what they are selling today. In fact, some of them already have even more variations. Innovation must be done so that products can continue to be relevant and not out of date.