IBM Said No to a Secretary. She Built a $47.5 Million Company Anyway.

Bette Nesmith Graham was a single mother working as an executive secretary at Texas Bank & Trust in Dallas during the 1950s. Electric typewriters were just becoming standard, and their carbon film ribbons made errors nearly impossible to erase cleanly. Every mistake meant retyping an entire page.

A Kitchen Chemistry Experiment

Graham had studied art, and she knew that painters fixed mistakes by painting over them. In 1956, she started bringing a small bottle of white tempera paint and a watercolor brush to the office, quietly dabbing over her errors. The other secretaries noticed immediately - and wanted bottles of their own.

She began mixing batches in her kitchen using a blender, originally calling the product "Mistake Out." She later renamed it Liquid Paper. She sold bottles at $1.50 each, and demand grew by word of mouth through secretary networks across Texas.

IBM Says No

In 1958, Graham approached IBM with her product. The company declined. It was a decision that would look spectacularly wrong within two decades. Rather than give up, Graham kept running the business from her house, filling orders in her garage and kitchen while working full-time at the bank.

In 1962, her employer fired her when they found out she had been working on Liquid Paper during office hours. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to the company - she went full-time on the business.

From Garage to Global

By the mid-1970s, Liquid Paper had grown into a serious operation. Graham built a 35,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Dallas. The company employed over 200 people and was selling the product in 31 countries. Annual revenue hit $38 million.

In 1979, the Gillette Corporation bought Liquid Paper for $47.5 million plus royalties. Graham had built the entire company from a single bottle of white paint.

The Monkees Connection

Graham's son, Michael Nesmith, grew up watching his mother mix correction fluid in the kitchen. He went on to pursue music and became one of the four members of The Monkees, the hugely popular 1960s TV band. Nesmith was also a pioneer of the music video format and is sometimes credited with helping inspire the creation of MTV.

Bette Nesmith Graham died in 1980, just six months after selling the company. She left half her estate to her son and the other half to philanthropic foundations supporting women in business and the arts.