Sol Price Part I: The Man Behind Price Clubs (now CostCo)*

You're interested in business ideas. How about this one?

It's 1975 and a fifty-nine-year-old San Diego businessman named Sol Price comes to you with an idea for a completely new approach to retailing. He wants to build a warehouse-size building on the outskirts of town, fill it merchandise for small business owners, and then charge them an annual fee to shop there. In return, he'll give them the lowest prices possible on every single thing he sells.

You know Sol Price was fired by the first company he built and that the buyer of that company is in a lot of trouble---but you also know Sol Price has a reputation for business genius and for the strictest personal integrity. He and his son are backing the new venture with a million dollars of their own money.

He wants you to put up $5,000 for one share in the venture.

Buy or pass?

Let's hope you said, "Buy"--because if you'd invested $5,000 in Sol Price's idea in 1975 and held on to it, by 1990 you'd have had an investment worth four million dollars.

Maybe you missed your shot at Price Club*, but how can you make your business idea work that well? Are there any rules? How, in short, did Sol Price do it?

*Price Clubs merged with CostCo in 1993.

Excerpted from
The Great American Idea Book: How to Make Money from Your Ideas for Movies, Music, Books, Inventions, Business and Almost Anything Else!
Authors: Bob Coleman & Deborah Neville
Publisher: WW Norton
Copyright: 1993; 1995
All Rights Reserved