Ray Kroc

Their pictures even appeared on sheet music covers.

Up at 7, selling until 5.30, on the air from 6 until 2, maybe four hours of sleep if he was lucky, six days a week.

Then winter came and his sales collapsed.

Cold beverages just didn't sell in Chicago winters.

So Kroc watched his customers stop buying because their own businesses had dried up.

He was an honest hustler.

He couldn't push products on people who didn't need them.

But he hated collecting a salary he felt he hadn't earned.

Felt like a violation of the meritocracy he believed in.

In order to focus on paper cups, he cut the piano.

And while this sounds like a simple decision, it wasn't.

The piano was something he loved, something he was good at, something that brought in money.

But he decided it was a distraction.

From now on, he would live and breathe paper cups.

And in the paper cup business, you quickly learn the margin on a single cup is negligible.

You had to sell a mountain of them to make any money.

And to do that, you had to find leverage.

So Ray started hunting.

In 1930, he found his leverage at Walgreens drugstores.

Walgreens was expanding fast and their soda fountains were a zoo at lunch hour.