You’re Fired!

We have all heard the saying: As one door closes, another one opens. That’s exactly what happened to our featured inventor.  Rather than wallowing in self pity after being fired, she used the new found time to work on her previous part-time, home business.  Being told “Your Fired!” resulted in a $47.5 million sale of her business less than twenty years later.

In the late 1940s, our inventor was faced with raising a son as a divorced single mother.  Similar to most women of that time, she had no education beyond high school.  Her dream of becoming a painter was foremost, but it would never pay the bills.  Her only option was to learn shorthand to go along with moderate typing skills which ultimately landed her a paying job as a secretary.

Back in the days before word processors and computers, typewriters were state of the art. Typing pools were the standard in every business.  These pools were comprised of a large number of typists, mostly women, whose job it was to hand type every memo, letter and contract for the business.  Typing mistakes would always happen with corrections difficult and unsightly to make.  It was a problem looking for a solution.

With artist intuition, our inventor knew that a painter simply paints over a mistake and goes on.  That’s it – a typist could paint over a mistake and then just continue typing.  Initially called Mistake Out, the paint over formula became a kitchen brew using the family’s blender.  Mother and son worked side by side to perfect, bottle and deliver the typo hiding paint.  The invention was offered to IBM, the manufacturer of the preferred office typewriter of the time, but the offer was flatly rejected.  Undaunted, the demand steadily grew with Mistake Out giving way to a new name, Liquid Paper.

Liquid Paper soon became a million dollar business with its own factory and 19 employees.  The Mother had become a business person to reckon with, allowing her son the chance to go to Hollywood to find himself.  The son wrote and recorded music with a little bit of success.  Then overnight, after an audition, he landed a spot with what would become one of the top selling, most popular and controversial pop bands of the late 1960s.  People loved the group, television loved them even more but the critics hated them.

By 1976, 500 bottles of Liquid Paper were being produced and sold every minute.  Soon Gillette came calling making our single mom a multi-millionaire.  With the money from the business sale, she set up two foundations focused on helping women discover new ways of making money.  Six months after the sale and the establishment of the foundations, she would pass away at 56.  Half of the $50+ million estate went to her only child, Michael, with the remainder going to her charities.

Our inventor, single mother, business woman and philanthropist is Bette Nesmith Graham.  The son is Michael Nesmith, a founding member of The Monkees whose hits included: I’m a Believer; (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone; Daydream Believer; Last Train to Clarksville; and, Pleasant Valley Sunday.