Check it out
It is not uncommon to find new business opportunity almost under your nose. The classic example is the “discovery” of Post-it notes, 3M ‘ s hundred-million-dollar-plus product. It began when David Fry, a 3M research scientist, became unhappy with using paper bookmarks to locate pages in his hymnal. An ardent member of his church choir, David often sang in two Sunday services. But this caused some difficulty, since the bookmarks would keep sliding out and he would lose his place between services.
What was needed was a bookmark that would stick to the pages, but could be easily removed and applied again. Fry recalled that a colleague at 3M, Spencer Silver, had developed just the glue. He tested it out, it worked fine and 3M had another winner.