More than 170 years ago, as thousands rushed to California looking for gold, a man named Levi Strauss saw a business opportunity. He wasn’t interested in panning or mining. He was interested in selling to those who were.
Levi (who had immigrated from Bavaria) was just 24 years old when he arrived in San Francisco in 1853. After spending several years working in his brothers’ dry goods business in New York, he knew something about blankets, clothing, bedding and the other everyday necessities people needed. And the eager gold-seekers in California needed a great deal of everything.
There is an old saying that during a gold rush, you should sell picks and shovels. Levi Strauss more or less did exactly that.
He established a wholesale dry goods business on the San Francisco waterfront and supplied stores throughout the rapidly growing West. By the early 1870s, Levi Strauss & Co. was already a successful business. And I suspect you’ll be surprised to learn that up until that point, Levi had neither made nor sold a single pair of pants.
The name Levi Strauss summons an image of America’s most iconic blue jeans brand. Yet it wasn’t ol’ Levi who invented them. The unsung man with the crucial idea was Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, and one of Levi’s customers.
As the story goes, a customer had asked Davis to make especially sturdy work pants for her husband. Davis came up with the ingenious solution of reinforcing the places most likely to tear with copper rivets. The pants were a hit. His customer told her friends, and soon Jacob had more business than he could handle. He realized he needed a patent – and help with manufacturing.
And so, in 1872, he wrote to Levi Strauss.
Levi was already successful. His dry goods business had been thriving for nearly two decades. Yet he was as interested in Jacob’s idea as if he himself were just starting out. At the Hall of Giants, we like to note that this is a classic characteristic of entrepreneurs – success doesn’t sate curiosity. Just because you’ve built a thriving business doesn’t mean you stop looking for new opportunities. And in those rivets, Levi saw a golden (or copper) opportunity.
He agreed to become Davis’s partner, and on May 20, 1873, the two men received a patent for their riveted work pants. Blue jeans were born.
There are two distinct acts of entrepreneurship in this story. Jacob Davis saw a practical problem and figured out how to solve it. Levi Strauss saw the possibilities in Davis’s solution and had the means to bring it to a much larger market.
Blue jeans moved from the mines and ranches of the West into everyday American life. Eventually, they traveled around the world. A garment first created for working men in the Sierras eventually became the universally recognized symbol of American fashion.
Entrepreneurs, we always note, look for hidden opportunities. Levi Strauss knew there was plenty of money in gold – but perhaps even more in meeting the needs of those who searched for it. He was also willing to answer that letter from a humble tailor in Reno and make that man his partner.
And you’ve probably got the result hanging in your closet right now.