022: Levi Strauss – Success Story Series

The original text for this story can be found at about.com.

This was drawn by Eastfist. View his work at his site.

For those of you who are familiar with Lean Startup, then you’ll recognise that Levi Strauss pivoted. His initial intention was to sell dry goods such as tent canvas materials. But after market testing and understanding the customer’s needs, he pivoted and started selling his newly invented jeans. If Lean Startup principals applied back then, they should certainly still apply now. Or you could say that this is just yet another timeless example of “adapt to survive”.

In fact, if you look at the history of jeans, this is not it’s only ‘pivot’. Jeans has continually adapted throughout one and a half centuries. The denim material was improved, the rivots were added for strength, and different colours were added. Not to mention how jeans were accepted into mainstream fashion rather than just for blue collar workers, including all the different style of jeans you can nowadays.

I do wonder how Levi Strauss came up with the ideas he did, and the business decisions he made. Maybe he was smart or just had a knack for business. Either way, his example is something we all can learn from.

This is the first our newly titled Success Story Series of comics. If you liked it, don’t for get to like our social media pages or email subscribe for updates.

If you have another person you’d like to see turned into a Success Story comic, let me know in the comics below.