An “aha” moment leads to product innovation
Who would have thought that a mouse and a mishap would spawn a billion dollar company? While on a date with her farmer husband-to-be, Kari Warberg Block was asked to help start a stalled tractor, as she sat there a mouse ran up her leg into her crotch. Eek!

At the time, Warberg Block worked at a cosmetic counter at a local department store in North Dakota. Despite the fact that the perfume gave her headaches, she wore it to impress her date and had a bottle in her purse that day. Thinking that if the fragrance gave her a headache, it would also give the mouse one, she sprayed the critter. It immediately took off.

Warberg Block thought other farmers would like a product that didn’t harm mice, but sent them packing. The products available at the time were poisonous not just to rodents, but to people,  especially children, which was of great concern to her.

Photo credit, Moise Nicu, snow mouse via Flickr