Hershey's : Failing disastrously → World-famous billionaire chocolatier

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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

Ever felt like everyone else has credentials you'll never have?

Like you're not "qualified enough" to compete with the real experts?

Meet Milton Hershey - a fourth-grade dropout who watched industry giants with generations of chocolate-making expertise and thought "I can do this better."

He built Hershey's Chocolates into a $7 billion empire while battling that exact same voice telling him he wasn't good enough.

But first, let me tell you about his three spectacular business failures...

🧘‍♂️ Farm kid with zero advantages

Picture this: you're born in 1857 in tiny Derry Township, Pennsylvania.

Your dad's one of those guys who starts businesses and abandons them the second they get tough.

Your mom's a strict Mennonite who believes hard work beats everything else.

When you're nine, your sister dies from scarlet fever, and your whole world falls apart.

Your dad keeps dragging the family around, chasing get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out.

All this moving around means you barely get any schooling.

By fourth grade?

Your mom pulls you out completely to learn a trade instead.

Sound like the background of someone destined for greatness?

Didn't think so.

Little did anyone know what this would spark...

🧩 Three crushing failures in a row

At 19, Milton borrowed $150 from his aunt and opened his first candy shop in Philadelphia.

Can you imagine working 15-16 hours a day, making caramels and selling them from a pushcart?

The guy literally collapsed from exhaustion!

But no matter how hard he worked, he couldn't turn a profit.

In 1882, he had to shut everything down.

Strike one.

He moved to Denver, learned this cool trick about adding fresh milk to caramels, then tried again in Chicago.

Failed. Again.

Strike two.

So he moved to New York, fell in love with this girl named Catherine, and started another candy business.

Then a group of kids stampeded his delivery wagon and made off with his entire inventory!

Bankruptcy.

For the third time.

Strike three.

Most people would've called it quits, right?

But here's where the story gets interesting instead of tragic...

🎪 The spark that changed everything

So picture Milton in 1883, crawling back to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

He was broke, broken, and everyone thought he was a lost cause.

His own relatives wouldn't even lend him money anymore!

(Ouch.)

But here's the thing - an old employee named Henry Lebkicher still believed in him.

Henry offered Milton a place to live AND the money to bring his candy equipment from New York.

So Milton started experimenting with that fresh milk technique he'd picked up in Denver.

The local area was surrounded by dairy farms - talk about perfect timing!

He created something totally new: creamy milk caramels that stayed fresh way longer than anything else on the market.

He called them "Hershey's Crystal A" caramels.

And suddenly?

Orders started pouring in.

People couldn't get enough of these things!

An English importer was about to change his life...

🕵️‍♀️ Building with what he had

That English importer placed a massive order for Milton's new milk caramels.

With that single order in hand, Milton secured a $250,000 loan.

By 1893, the Lancaster Caramel Company had factories in four cities employing over 1,300 workers.

But Milton wasn't satisfied with just success - he was looking ahead.

At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, he watched a demonstration of German chocolate-making machinery.

He turned to a friend and said: "Caramels are a fad, but chocolate is permanent. I'm going to make chocolate."

Everyone thought he'd lost his mind.

Chocolate was this expensive luxury, made only in Switzerland and Germany by companies with centuries of experience.

Who was this farm kid with a fourth-grade education to think he could compete with that kind of expertise?

He was about to bet everything on chocolate...

⛳️ The million-dollar leap of faith

In 1900, Milton did something that shocked the entire business world.

He sold his incredibly successful caramel company for $1 million.

But here's the kicker - he kept the rights to make chocolate.

People thought he'd completely lost his mind!

Why would you sell a proven, profitable business for an unproven experiment?

But Milton had spent years secretly perfecting his milk chocolate recipe through trial and error.

The Swiss had kept their chocolate-making process a closely guarded secret for centuries.

Milton figured it out anyway, working in his own factory with zero formal training.

Now he had the money to build something revolutionary: affordable chocolate for everyone, not just the wealthy elite.

"I failed three times because I had not taken the time to get all the facts. After that I learned my lesson well."

He was about to build way more than just a chocolate factory...

🌈 Creating a chocolate empire

Milton didn't just build a factory - he built an entire town around it.

He chose his birthplace in Pennsylvania because it had clean water, proximity to dairy farms, and plenty of land to expand.

Construction began in 1903, and by 1905, he had something incredible.

Hershey, Pennsylvania featured paved streets with names like Chocolate Avenue and Cocoa Avenue.

Schools, hospitals, an amusement park, even a zoo for his workers and their families.

His employees lived in affordable housing with electricity and sewage systems - absolute luxuries in 1905.

The factory itself used cutting-edge machinery to mass-produce chocolate at prices everyday people could afford.

In 1907, he introduced those iconic Hershey's Kisses - little chocolates wrapped in foil.

They started wrapping them by hand, then switched to machines in 1921 with that little paper ribbon on top.

By 1921, company sales had rocketed from $600,000 to $20 million!

Then came the Great Depression.

While other companies fired workers and cut operations, Milton launched his "Great Building Campaign" to keep everyone employed.

When a foreman bragged that one steam shovel could do the work of 40 men, Milton said: "Get rid of the shovel and hire 40 workers."

He'd rather create jobs than save money.

🎁 A legacy built on sweetness

Today, Hershey's generates over $7 billion annually and sells in 60+ countries.

The town of Hershey still attracts 3 million visitors every year for chocolate factory tours.

Milton never remarried after his wife Catherine died, but he poured his heart into building a school for orphaned children.

He donated $60 million and 40% of his company stock to ensure those kids got the education he never had.

The Milton Hershey School still operates today on 10,000 acres.

"Business is a matter of human service," he always said.

A fourth-grade dropout who failed three times became one of America's greatest entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

"You can be battered down three times, as I was, and still come out on top."

🥂 Your turn to light it up!

Milton's lack of credentials wasn't his limitation - it was his advantage.

While "qualified" competitors stuck to old methods, he experimented freely and discovered breakthroughs they'd never consider.

Your timing is perfect - just like Milton proved that having "no qualifications" meant he had no limits on what was possible.

I'm pretty sure you're gonna catch everyone off guard.

Keep zoooming! 🚀🍹

Yours 'anti-hustle' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️