Rose Blumkin | Entrepreneur

A charming story from Martin Fridson’s How to Be a Billionaire about Rose Blumkin, founder of an Omaha furniture store that Warren Buffett eventually purchased:

“Barely literate in English, the Russian-born immigrant parlayed a $500 investment into Nebraska Furniture Mart, the nation’s largest furniture store, with an astounding two-thirds of the total market in Omaha. Well into her nineties, Blumkin worked 10- or 12-hours days, seven days a week, and listed her hobby as driving around to spy on competitors. If she ran out of stock, she would sell furniture out of her own home. At the age of 95, unhappy that her grandsons were cutting her out of key decisions, Blumkin retired. Just three months later, she launched a competing store, Mrs. B’s Clearance and Factory Outlet, directly across the street from the Nebraska Furniture Mart. Within two years, the new venture had become Omaha’s third largest carpet outlet. Buffett bought Mrs. B’s the following year and joked that he would never repeat the mistake of letting Rose Blumkin resign without signing a noncompete agreement.”

Related:

My co-edited (with Jennifer Harrolle) volumes of interviews with recent entrepreneurs:

Entrepreneurial Living: 15 Stories of Innovation, Risk, and Achievement and One Story of Abject Failure.

And the follow-up second volume: More Entrepreneurial Living: 16 More Stories of Innovation, Risk, and Achievement.