Two famous men died recently: Don Featherstone and Burt Shavitz.
If those names don’t ring a bell, their products certainly will.
In 1957, Featherstone invented the phoenicopterus ruber plasticus, better known as the plastic pink flamingo. He died on June 20 at age 79. For almost 60 years now, his creation has decorated the homes and gardens of millions of people world-wide.
Shavitz died Sunday at age 80. He had been a photographer as a young man, but when he received a small inheritance from his grandfather, he bought some land in Maine and was content to spend his life as a beekeeper.
He would have likely retired to obscurity (and at no point did anyone get the impression he would not have been just fine with that) had it not been for a chance encounter with a hitchhiker 30 years ago.
Roxanne Quimby and Burt became a couple. While Burt tended his bees, Roxanne made moisturizers and lip balm out of the beeswax produced by the bees.
Burt’s Bees was born.
When they parted ways 15 years later, Burt’s Bees had made Quimby a rich woman (on the way to getting much richer after selling the company for a reported $140 million). It made Burt far less rich, but probably much richer than he ever cared to be.
Eventually, Burt’s Bees was sold to Clorox for almost $1 billion. Today the products that bear Burt’s name and likeness are sold in more than 50 countries.
It was much the same for Featherstone. Despite the millions of plastic pink flamingos sold, he didn’t get rich.
In 1957, much to the horror of his art teachers at Worchester Art Institute in Massachusetts, the promising sculptor took a job with Union Products, a maker of plastic lawn ornaments in Leominster, Massachusetts.
The flamingo was just his second project and while it didn’t make him rich, it did provide all the job security he would ever need. He spent 43 years at Union Products, the last four as the company president, before retiring in 2000. The company went out of business six years later, but the pink plastic flamingo lives on in landscape infamy.
There is something particularly charming about the stories of Featherstone and Shavitz. The stories of American entrepreneurship are too numerous to count. That spirit has given our country the most dynamic economy in the world.
And it is not confined to Maine and Massachusetts. Right here in our backyard, we see the same spirit of entrepreneurship.
Even at the local level, there are too many to confine to a comprehensive list. They range from big (Mossy Oak and GoBox) to small (as a trip to the Hitching Lot Farmers Market will confirm). Some offer a new product or service; others provide an improvement on an existing product or service. Some have ambitious plans; others are looking for a way to supplement their income doing something they love.
They are staring down some pretty big odds, statistically speaking. The five-year survival rate for a first-time start-up is about 12 percent.
Even so, that should not be a discouragement. As the old adage goes, spend your life doing something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.
Following that path may be risky, but for many it’s better than the other well-worn avenue — the path of least resistance, where the road is level but the scenery bland.
So, carry on and be bold, entrepreneurs. Don’t let anyone scoff you into submission.
After all, if empires can be built on such things as beeswax and plastic flamingos, the possibilities are endless.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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