When you have a novel idea that could make you rich, you have to be ready for an expensive learning curve. Frederic Tudor came from a wealthy family, and was determined to make his idea work. Tudor grew up in New England, where the lakes and rivers froze solid in the winter. How much money could he make shipping that ice to the tropics? In 1806, the 23-year-old took advantage of empty ships going to pick up cargo from the Caribbean to send ice harveted from ponds at his father's farm. Most of it melted during the month-long trip, and he lost thousands of dollars. But Tudor persevered, experimenting with new ways to insulate the ice ...and lost more money, leading to debtor's prison.
It took a few years and quite a few disastrous trips before Tudor started making money shipping ice, but he eventually turned a huge profit sending ice shipments to India, a voyage that took four months. The secret was building an infrastructure of ice houses and vendors, and in making customers desire ice that could keep their food from spoiling. Of course, once people demanded ice, technology was developed to produce it locally. But Frederic Tudor, the Ice King of Boston, grew rich by showing them what could be.
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