Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

6.4. Lesson 51: Learn the Market

Edison the boy was an entrepreneur before he was an inventor, and his subsequent drive to invent was never cut loose from his original entrepreneurial impulse. For Edison, invention always responded to a perceived market and, in turn—provided that it was successful—expanded that market or created new, related markets.

Shortly after he went to work for the Grand Trunk Western Railway as a news butcher, young Tom Edison opened up a pair of stands at the Port Huron railroad station, one selling newspapers and periodicals, the other selling fruits and vegetables. He hired two boys to run the stands, but he finally decided to close both and concentrate exclusively on his train-board business, especially the sale of ...