Wrigley's Gum: From earning $1.50 a week to world's richest man

Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 4-5 minutes

Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

Ever catch yourself thinking "My past mistakes have ruined my chances"?

Like that voice in your head keeps replaying every failure, every wrong turn, every time you messed up?

Here's what that voice doesn't want you to know: someone with a way messier past than yours is probably building their empire right now while you're stuck thinking you're "damaged goods."

Meet William Wrigley Jr. - a school dropout who got kicked out for throwing cream pies, lived homeless on the streets, failed at multiple businesses, and had such a bad reputation that his own father punished him with the worst job in the factory before building Wrigley's Chewing Gum into a multi-billion dollar empire that still dominates the world today.

But his journey to the top started with the worst job imaginable...

🧘‍♂️ The troublemaker nobody believed in

Picture this: you're 11 years old and so fed up with everything that you literally run away from home.

That was William Wrigley Jr.

This kid was the absolute worst nightmare for any teacher - pranks, trouble, parents getting called to school constantly.

Can you imagine living on the streets of New York City as a kid?

Sleeping on doorsteps and in wagons, selling newspapers just to eat?

When winter hit, he nearly froze and had to crawl back home with his tail between his legs.

But did he learn his lesson?

Not a chance.

A year later, he threw cream pies at his school's signboard and got expelled for good.

His dad was furious: "Your school life hasn't been a success. Let's see how work strikes you."

Little did his father know what he'd just unleashed...

🧩 The worst job that built a empire mindset

Talk about the worst punishment imaginable.

Wrigley's dad stuck him with the absolute worst job in their soap factory - stirring massive vats of boiling soap with a heavy paddle for ten hours a day.

We're talking backbreaking work in scorching temperatures for $1.50 a week.

The kid was 13!

But here's the thing - instead of complaining or quitting like most would, Wrigley used this "punishment" to get stronger, both physically and mentally.

Pretty soon, he convinced his dad to let him become a salesman.

Picture this: a teenager driving a red horse-drawn wagon loaded with soap across the entire northeastern United States.

That's where he learned the magic of connecting with people - gentle persuasion, making friends through conversation, even adjusting prices so customers could afford his products while he still made a profit.

Sound familiar?

You're probably doing something similar right now with your own audience.

But he was just getting warmed up...

🎪 The moment everything clicked

So at 18, Wrigley thought he'd try his luck with gold mining on the west coast.

What could go wrong, right?

Everything, as it turns out.

He lost his money and ticket in Kansas City and found himself stranded... again.

Back to survival mode - this time working at a dingy doughnut shop for $15 a week.

But here's where it gets interesting (and this is gonna sound weird, but stick with me).

While serving customers, he started noticing patterns in how people ate.

Sad customers chewed their food harder.

Happy ones swallowed quickly.

Can you imagine?

This random observation in a crappy doughnut shop was teaching him to read people and understand their emotions.

When he finally made it back to Pennsylvania at 23, he'd figured out something huge: success isn't about having the perfect plan - it's about understanding what people really want.

His real adventure was just beginning...

🕵️‍♀️ Starting from absolute zero (again)

Fast forward to age 29.

Wrigley's married, has a little daughter, and exactly $32 to his name.

Time to start over in Chicago.

No connections, no fancy credentials, no detailed business plan.

Just pure hustle and a willingness to figure it out as he went.

He borrowed $5,000 from his uncle and started selling soap.

But nobody wanted his soap.

(Sound familiar? Ever launch something and hear crickets?)

So he tried something that seemed crazy at the time - giving away free stuff with every soap purchase.

Red umbrellas, coffee pots, pocket knives, fishing tackles.

He'd buy them cheap in bulk and just give them away.

"Everybody likes something extra, for nothing," he said.

The free items worked... but then he noticed something interesting.

People seemed way more excited about the free baking powder than the actual soap he was selling.

So what'd he do?

Pivoted to selling baking powder instead.

But here's where his observational skills from that doughnut shop really paid off.

He kept watching customer reactions, taking notes on what they actually wanted versus what he thought they wanted.

When he started giving away free chewing gum with the baking powder purchases, something clicked.

Customers weren't just politely taking the gum - they were asking for more, talking about it, genuinely excited about it.

That's when he realized: sometimes your real business is hiding in what you're giving away for free.

This observation would change his life forever...

⛳️ The bet that almost killed him

By 1907, Wrigley had jumped into the chewing gum business, but then disaster struck.

A massive financial crisis hit the country.

Consumers stopped buying anything non-essential (like gum), and his competitors panicked, slashing their advertising budgets left and right.

Wrigley was broke, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and everyone told him to cut costs like everyone else.

But instead of following the crowd, he saw something they missed.

With all his competitors running scared, advertising rates were dirt cheap.

So what'd this "crazy" guy do?

He mortgaged everything he owned and borrowed $250,000.

In just three days, he bought advertising space that normally would've cost $1.5 million.

Everyone thought he'd completely lost his mind.

"I thought I knew what I was doing," he said later.

His approach?

Keep it simple: "Tell 'em quick and tell 'em often."

Short messages, repeated constantly, while everyone else went silent.

The results were about to shock everyone...

🌈 The gamble that paid off big

Two years later?

The results were absolutely insane.

Spearmint became the #1 gum in America.

Sales exploded from $170,000 to over $3 million.

Wrigley went from a struggling Midwest operation to dominating the entire country in just months.

But he didn't stop there (of course he didn't).

In 1915, he tried something nobody had ever attempted - he mailed free gum to 1.5 million addresses straight from phone directories.

Four years later, he did it again but went even bigger - 7 million homes across America.

His logic?

People with phones could probably afford gum.

He was absolutely right.

While other business owners played it safe, Wrigley's willingness to try "crazy" marketing experiments made him one of the world's richest men.

And it all started with a kid who got kicked out of school for throwing cream pies.

🎁 The empire that started with cream pies

Today, Wrigley's is the world's largest chewing gum company.

Over $5 billion in revenue.

Brands like Juicy Fruit, Big Red, Extra, and Life Savers.

All because a troublemaking school dropout refused to accept that his background disqualified him.

He built the iconic Wrigley Building in Chicago, owned the Chicago Cubs, and turned Catalina Island into a world-famous resort.

When asked about his secret to success, he said: "What I've accomplished has been done because I've enjoyed every moment of the battle."

His philosophy?

"A man's doubts and fears are his worst enemies. He can go ahead and do anything, as long as he believes in himself."

🥂 Your turn to get awesome!

Wrigley's messy past - the expelled troublemaker, the street kid, the multiple business failures - became his secret weapon for thinking differently than "respectable" competitors.

Every mistake taught him something his well-behaved rivals never learned, leading to a multi-billion dollar empire.

Your beginner's mind is your secret weapon - just like how Wrigley's complete inexperience with gum manufacturing led him to discover chicle as a game-changing ingredient.

I'm excited to see what you build next.

Let the good times roll for you! 🍨

Your 'partner in rebellion with the status quo' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️