Just One Good Idea: What Wasn't Written

Some stories don’t feel important at first. They’re simple. Almost easy to pass by. And then… something about them stays. Longer than it should. This was one of those. A reader told me about her grandmother—and one small, almost unexpected thing she used to say. She wanted to come back as a giraffe. Not in a joking way. Not as a passing comment. It was something she believed. Something she said mo...

PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS * A dyslexic boy from rural Sweden builds a mini-empire from a bicycle basket. * Ingvar Kamprad launches IKEA at just 17 using seed money from his father. * Guilds and suppliers blacklist him — twice. * A broken table leg sparks the invention of flat-pack furniture. * IKEA becomes a global movement built around accessibility, simplicity, and design democracy. * The business grow...

Episode Summary Before Airbnb became a global hospitality giant, it was just two young dreamers fighting off fear, overdue rent, and a desperate belief in their idea. This episode reveals the humble, human origin — and the tiny act of courage that sparked a worldwide movement. What You’ll Hear * The emotional night Airbnb almost died * How struggle, scarcity, and faith shaped a billion-dollar idea...

Episode Description: They say the greatest inventions come from genius. But sometimes, they come from love. In 1920, a young man named Earle Dickson was working as a cotton buyer for a small but ambitious company called Johnson & Johnson. At home, his spirited wife Josephine kept accidentally burning and cutting herself in the kitchen. Every time, Earle would wrap her wounds with gauze and medical...

Episode Summary: This episode traces the incredible journey of Henry J. Heinz, the man who turned a mother’s secret recipe for horseradish into a global food empire. We explore his immigrant beginnings in Pittsburgh, his crushing first business bankruptcy, his brilliant pivot to ketchup, and the marketing genius that gave us the “57 Varieties” slogan. We also look at how his obsession with transpa...

Episode Description: Some ideas fail a thousand times before they finally fit. This is the untold story of the zipper — a small invention that began as a clumsy, unreliable fastener and became one of the most transformative innovations in history. In this episode, Sandra Franks unzips the fascinating journey of lawyer Lewis Walker and engineer Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundbäck , two men who refused to...

Episode Description: Sometimes, the greatest deliveries don’t arrive in boxes — they arrive in moments of pure grit. In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story, Sandra Franks uncovers the incredible journey of Jim Casey , the orphaned boy who borrowed $100, bought one bicycle, and built what would become United Parcel Service (UPS) — one of the most trusted companies in the world. You...

Episode Description: In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story , we uncover the surprising origins of Cup Noodles. From Taiwan to Japan, from bankruptcy to global success, this is the story of Momofuku Ando — the man who turned hunger into one of the most successful food products in history. What You’ll Learn: * Why famous names like Jeremy Renner, Russell Westbrook, and Jim Gaffigan...

Episode Summary: In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story , we uncover the surprising origins of Kleenex. Born as a World War I bandage material, repurposed as a secret menstrual pad, and finally rebranded as the world’s first disposable handkerchief—this is the story of how Kimberly-Clark turned one invention into multiple market-changing products. 🔑 Episode Highlights * The Rag-P...

Episode Summary Netflix may feel like it’s always been there — your Friday-night fallback, your binge-watch enabler, your “just one more episode” guilty pleasure. But it started with something incredibly small: two guys, an envelope, and a single DVD sent through the mail. In this episode, we go behind the scenes of Netflix’s origin story — from a carpool brainstorming session between Marc Randolp...

Podcast Description What do sandpaper, two-tone cars, and a stubborn banjo player have to do with one of the world’s most iconic office supplies? In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story , we follow Richard Drew — a college dropout turned 3M engineer — who secretly defied orders to create a new kind of tape. What started as a side project became Scotch Tape … and more importantly, s...

Show Notes: Just One Good Idea — Behind the Story Baking soda might seem ordinary — a little orange box in your fridge, your pantry, or your laundry room. But behind it is a story of grit, rivalry, and reconciliation. In this episode, I uncover the surprising origins of Arm & Hammer: how an orphan-turned-doctor and his ambitious brother-in-law transformed kitchen experiments into a billion-dollar...

Episode Description What does a French emperor have to do with the soup in your kitchen? A lot more than you think. In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story , we uncover the fascinating chain of events that turned Napoleon’s quest to feed his army into a $9 billion global brand. You’ll meet the innkeeper’s son who changed food forever, the New Jersey merchant who seized an opportuni...

Episode Summary: A broken bottle. A frustrated entrepreneur. And a sweet idea that changed American kitchens forever. In this episode of Just One Good Idea: Behind the Story , discover how Edwin Perkins turned a shipping nightmare into Kool-Aid—and why this story is really about resilience, reinvention, and small pivots that make a big difference. Episode Chapters: * [00:00] The Broken Bottle That...

Editor’s Note: Be sure to listen to the “the behind the story,” podcast, where I share a few more details including why I picked writing about this in the first place … mostly because it’s a story of human emotions starting with immigration and heartbreak to reinvention and little luck. The air was thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, damp stone, and desperation. It clung to the ragged wool of...

She wasn’t the ravishing beauty depicted in movies. And she looked nothing like one of the most famous movie stars to ever play her - Elizabeth Taylor. The truth is no one really knows with 100% accuracy what Cleopatra VII, ruler of Egypt for 21 years truly looked like. But we can make a few guesses based on the bust and sculptures that were made of the Queen of Egypt. One of the most prominent is...

The blue haze rises just above the clear, rushing water of the Pigeon River, which is in the Smokies, or as they are officially known - the Great Smoky Mountains . In fact that’s how the mountains got their name … from the blue haze. The Pigeon River, which is a translation of its 18th-century French name, Rivière aux Tourtre runs through the mountains, starting in North Carolina, and covers over...

Editor’s Note: Let me apologize for you not receiving this issue as normally scheduled. But I had some technical issues that prevented me from sending this to you as it’s regularly scheduled time. The problem has been fixed. So here’s the issue, just a little late. Life was incredibly harsh … especially if you were a peasant living in Russia in the early part of 1800s. You see back then there were...

Few people know his name and fewer still know the critical role he played in America’s Industrial Revolution. In fact he helped advanced the U.S.’s textile industry, with multiple innovations while setting up a unique labor model - one famously dubbed the “mills girls,” which I’ll tell you more about in just a minute. For now, let’s talk about the man who had a huge impact on our country’s industr...

It’s a tiny village in Essex, England known as Navestock. The name means “stump on the headland,” which reflects its topography and landscape. It consists of four scattered hamlets: Navestock Side, Horseman Side, Cuddlesmere Green, and Navestock Heath, and stands near the river Roding. The village has population of just 928 people spread across 4,329 acres of land. Navestock is not served well by...

It is without a doubt and remains to this day, one of the most iconic images ever photographed — and possibly the most famous poster of all time. It certainly was the best-selling poster of all time. Of course I’m talking about Farrah Fawcett in her red swimsuit, photographed in 1976 by Bruce McBroom in her backyard. That poster sold over 12 million copies at $3 a pop, hauling in $36 million in sa...

Editor’s Note: I’m continuing with what I did last week for the podcast edition of Just One Good Idea. I tell you the story behind the story … how I stumbled up it and the juicy bits of details that made the story fun to research and read. Scientists say it’s hard to estimate the actual number that exists because of limited global surveys and the fact that many remain underground, undiscovered or...

Editor’s Note: Today I did something a little different for the podcast version of the story. This time I tell you the story behind the story. In other words, I share with you how I uncovered the story and why I choose to write about it. I think you’ll find it interesting. And the full version of the story is below. The mixture had a strong, noxious petroleum odor, dominated by the volatile, sharp...

Editor’s Note: As usual, if you’d like to read the full story, with all the rich details then just click on the link down at the bottom of this episode recap. 📝 Episode Summary: Before there was a pink bunny with sunglasses, there was a brilliant inventor with a burnout problem… and a wire salesman with perfect timing. In this episode, we take you from the backstreets of Brooklyn to the labs of i...

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to read the full issue of the newsletter, just click on the link at the end of this post. 📄 Episode Show Notes: In this episode, we explore the gripping and unexpectedly almost comical like backstory of one of the most underrated inventions of the 20th century: WD-40 . From Cold War rocket labs to flooded pickup trucks, and from jungle war zones to guitar shops, this...