Entrepreneur Stories
IKEA And How It Changed The Way People Designed Their Homes
Born in Sweden in the year 1926, Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA’s founder’s) entrepreneurial journey began at the age of 5. Belonging to a family which could not afford the basic necessities on a daily basis, Kamprad’s flair for business came to be when he sold matches to help out his family. Despite cracking a profit in this business early on, Kamprad wanted to try his hand at selling a wide range of things.
Progressing through the years, Kamprad started selling fish, pencils and Christmas decorations by the age of 10. However, like every successful story, Kamprad’s entrepreneur journey was cut short by the increasing popularity of Hitler. Heavily under the influence of a Nazi sympathetic grandmother, Ingvar joined a youth Nazi movement only to realise very quickly that it was perhaps the biggest mistake of his life.
The beginning of IKEA
Despite having such a brilliant flair for business, Kamprad had a major problem; he was dyslexic. A disorder like this was not heard of back then and for people to complete schooling at the time was a big deal! When Kamprad did the impossible at the age of 17, his father gave him some money as seed investment for his dream. This was the first round of funding ever received by IKEA!
With the money his father had given him, Kamprad started working on making his dream come true. IKEA did not sell furniture. The journey began with the sale of frames and small household items. Making the most of an untapped market, Kamprad started making profit from the very beginning.
It was not until the year 1956 that the world of furniture marketing was revolutionized. When Kamprad introduced a new cost cutting system in the form of flat packing, a new way of buying furniture was introduced to the people! The IKEA concept finally started taking shape and new products like POANG and the BILLY bookcase came to being in the market.
The IKEA expansion
With IKEA growing so much, an increase in taxes was but inevitable. To counter the unfavourable taxes imposed by the Swedish government, Kamprad moved his family to Denmark. While most people thought this was a bad idea, the move turned to be a good thing for IKEA. Not only did the company expand to Denmark, it also moved to the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
With the arrival of other classic products like KLIPPAN, LACK and MOMENT, IKEA started to take the form of the IKEA of today. What made IKEA grow so much was that not only did they expand their stores across different locations, they also started developing products synonymous to the IKEA style.
IKEA’s growth through the years has shown that it takes a vision and dream to turn what you want to reality.
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