3M Post-it

In 1968, a 3M chemist named Spencer Silver was chasing a super-strong aerospace adhesive and produced the opposite: a glue so weak it barely held, peeling off without a trace. By every conventional standard it was a flop, and for years nobody in the building knew what to do with it. Then a colleague singing in his church choir got annoyed at a falling bookmark, and the idea finally had a use. Even then the road to a national launch in 1980 was anything but smooth.

For founders and operators, this is a case about the byproducts and dead-end experiments piling up in your own shop right now. It sharpens the call on whether to let an off-target result die quietly or fight to keep it alive. What 3M built into its structure to make that fight winnable is the part worth opening the app for.