1. Invention is the easy part.
LEGO "invented" the plastic building brick in 1949 and nearly went under. The blocks existed; they just didn't work. It took another nine years before they cracked it.
The breakthrough is usually not the invention. It's that last, unglamorous detail that makes an idea reliable. Keep pushing.
2. Pick a lane, then crush it.
Christiansen's motto was "only the best is good enough." And boy, did he ever mean
it.
As LEGO's own history tells it, his son Godtfred once boasted he'd saved money by sending out a batch of wooden ducks with two coats of varnish instead of the usual three. His father made him take the whole shipment back and add the third.
Quality was core to LEGO. Even when things were going well, it remained core.
3. Jump before you're pushed.
He bet more than two years of profit on plastic while his wooden toys were still selling. His own staff thought he'd lost it.
He moved early, on a shift he could see coming in the material itself.
I've been echoing this theme lately, but these stories keep seeming to
prove it: the time to switch is while the thing that pays the bills still works. | 
