People Who Succeed Pay Their Dues First

They build their “hard skills” for years before succeeding

In the early 1940s, a boy from southern Sweden discovered he could buy boxes of matches in bulk from Stockholm, then sell them individually for cheap in his small town for a nice profit.

The boy continued doing this for some time, riding his bicycle around town, and selling matches. When the matches continued to sell well, he reinvested his earnings by buying various other items. He expanded his inventory and sold:

• Christmas ornaments
• Pencils and ballpoint pens
• Fish
• Seeds
• And so forth

After a few years, he was earning enough to buy and sell furniture. When the boy, named Ingvar Kamprad, turned seventeen, he decided to call his business IKEA.

For the Financial Year 2022, the Inter IKEA Group posted total retail sales of EUR 44.6 billion, with a 6.5% increase from the previous year, despite the ongoing high inflation. And just last year, IKEA opened its largest store to date, in the Philippines, spanning 730,000 square feet.

All these started with a box of matches sold on a bicycle in a little Swedish town. What’s the point of this story?