Bette Nesmith Graham’s story illustrates how business is supposed to work: identify a need, figure out how to fill that need, and profit. However, being a single mother with no high school diploma and no business connections in the 1950s meant doing it the hard way. After her divorce, Bette Nesmith got a job at Texas Bank and Trust, where she was mostly a typist.
Though Graham wasn’t a great typist, she eventually rose to the position of executive secretary — then the highest job available to the bank’s female employees.
At the time, IBM had just come out with a new line of electric typewriters that were faster than previous models and used carbon film ribbons.
But as Graham soon learned, the invention had several downsides:
The sensitive keypad lent itself to more typographical errors.
The carbon ribbons made these errors impossible to erase without leaving smudges all over the paper.
Graham had to find a way to fix her numerous typos. Soon, an idea struck.
Read how Graham invented Liquid Paper, and then manufactured and marketed it herself at the Hustle. -via Nag on the Lake