Bookmarks

I was nine, bored at home, and started making bookmarks for myself: layers of paper glued together so they were sturdy, with a design on the front so they were not boring white. I took one to school, people liked it, and suddenly I had demand.

So I made more. Each one took about two hours of work, and I sold them for whatever people offered. Twenty cents, fifty, on a great day a full euro. Most of the time I was too generous and gave them away for free. The margins were catastrophic and the customers were delighted.

I did not have the word for it back then, but that was my first product: make something, watch someone want it, hand it over. Everything since has been the same loop with better margins.