Ikea: This is how founder Ingvar Kamprad revolutionized the furniture business

The brilliant idea that will grow the world’s largest furniture empire comes from one simple reason: the car is too small. It’s 1955. The future designer Gillis Lundgren is supposed to pick up a table from a furniture factory for Ikea, a small trading company from the Swedish countryside. But some of the prototype doesn’t fit in the car: not in the back seat, not in the trunk. Then Lundgren has an idea. He makes the legs shorter and packs them under the table top. It’s more manageable.

And his boss? This results in a completely new business model: the furniture kit.