[Lee Jong-gil's Autumn Return] A 'Must-Read Startup Book' That Can Even Beat Amazon

Jim Mckelvy 'Uncopyable'

The global furniture brand IKEA started as a small mail-order company. When customers placed orders, the company received goods from factories and delivered them. The founder, Ingvar Kamprad (1926?2018), was busy imitating competitors. When Gunnar’s Fabriker, the industry leader at the time, began selling furniture, Kamprad immediately met with furniture suppliers.

IKEA attracted customers with massive price cuts. However, the bleeding-edge strategy was not sustainable. Complaints about quality surged, and the reputation worsened.

Kamprad overcame the crisis thanks to competitors. It was not because he gained something to imitate. Rather, he became unable to imitate and was reborn as a new company. From 1950, IKEA was barred from participating in furniture fairs due to interference from competitors. At that time, furniture fairs were important events for showcasing new products and connecting sellers and suppliers. IKEA was deprived not only of exhibition opportunities but even of entry qualifications.

Unable to stand idly by, Kamprad rented a nearby space and filled it with IKEA furniture. Curious people flocked to the ostracized company. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Kamprad secured a permanent space. It was arranged as a place where people could see, touch, and compare furniture in detail. A long line formed at the exhibition entrance. This was success achieved by breaking away from imitation.

Jim McKelvey, who led Square to become a global fintech company, wrote in his book Uncopyable that the success processes of Square and IKEA were similar. Square did not start on a path of innovation from the beginning. It tried to imitate good examples in the credit card industry. However, it realized that it could not get what it wanted from the existing system.

Square sought a new direction. Turning to smartphone-based card readers, it recorded $550 million in sales within four years of founding.

Even in this unprecedented success story, there was a crisis. The giant company Amazon released a card reader with similar functions to Square’s. Using existing infrastructure and offering a price 30% cheaper, market domination was anticipated. Market analysts unanimously predicted Square’s imminent failure. However, surprisingly, Amazon withdrew from the card reader business a year later.

How did Square overcome Amazon’s offensive? Uncopyable is a book that contains the secret. It does not hold an absolute formula for success. It simply pays close attention to how successful startups created original businesses. It highlights common secrets to help startup founders find new innovation models.

IKEA is also mentioned as a successful startup. Even after establishing its own showroom as a turning point, IKEA faced numerous challenges. A representative example was competitors collectively boycotting suppliers who dealt with IKEA. This made an ordinary Swedish man the world’s most successful furniture entrepreneur. Kamprad, unable to get the same furniture supplies, personally designed furniture at a Polish factory.

Having secured its own style and design, IKEA also became a supplier, completely overturning the furniture industry landscape. By introducing the idea of customers assembling furniture themselves, it maintained low prices and thrived for over 70 years.

McKelvey focuses on the background of creating furniture that can be fully assembled with just a hex key. Not a new technology, but a strategy established under all kinds of prohibitions and boycotts is shining worldwide.

Kamprad revealed the reason during his lifetime. "Visiting the home of a carpet supplier at the Milan Fair sparked the idea. It was an ordinary Italian household, but what I saw was astonishing. The furniture was heavy and dull, and there was only one light hanging over the heavy dining table. It was a huge contrast to the elegant furniture at the fair. It’s hard to say when the philosophy began to take shape in my mind. I don’t want to overestimate my foresight, but Milan pushed me toward 'democratic design.' Not only stylish but also designs suitable for machine production from the start and capable of being produced at low cost."