William Hoover Swept Up Big Bucks With His Vacuum

Some see necessity as the mother of invention.Yet without proper production values and marketing techniques, an invention can go nowhere.Consider Howard Johnson, who didn't invent ice cream, but recognized its value, mass-produced it and made 28 flavors the cornerstone of his restaurant empire.Hoover plugged the country into James Spangler's invention.Hoover plugged the country into James Spangler's invention.Consider Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck, who didn't invent the direct-market catalog, but built the largest catalog sales company in America.William Hoover, like Johnson, Sears and Roebuck, stands as an entrepreneurial giant.Hoover didn't invent the electric suction sweeper, but recognized its utility and used his production and marketing wits to transform it into a trusted and desirable product — the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner — as well as found the global Hoover Co.

"The idea for a new invention or enterprise doesn't have to always spring from the mind of the entrepreneur," Fordham University business professor Robert Hurley, an expert on innovation and marketing, told IBD. "But for entrepreneurs to be successful, there needs to be someone on the team —x431 GDS like William H. Hoover — who is able to notice big ideas and make sure they get executed fast and well."Ahead of Hoover's climb were the 1907 doings of an aspiring inventor named James Spangler, who cleaned floors for a living in a Canton, Ohio, department store.Spangler used a clumsy, heavy, inefficient carpet sweeper that kicked up dust. That worsened his asthma, so he had to act: Quit his job or figure out how to craft a dustless electric suction sweeper.

Rather than quit work, he developed the prototype for what would be the Hoover vacuum cleaner.Spangler patented his invention in 1908 and began selling it door-to-door in the Canton area.In "Entrepreneurs: The Men and Women Behind Famous Brand Names and How They Made It," authors Joseph and Suzy Fucini recounted how Hoover discovered the new contraption:"One of the first sales that Spangler made was to his cousin, Susan Hoover,China x431 solo OBD the wife of a prosperous Ohio saddle maker. ... When Susan's husband, William H. Hoover, saw her new sweeper, he was impressed. A former railroad president and the first elected mayor of New Berlin, Ohio, Hoover had a well-deserved reputation for being an astute businessman."