Summer 2005, an ordinary kitchen in Boulder, Colorado. A mom named Sheri Schmelzer was sitting at the table with her three kids. Nothing special was happening — just one of those bored summer afternoons where the kids are whining that they're bored out of their minds, and the mom is glancing around for literally anything to occupy them.
Her oldest daughter Lexie's sewing box happened to be sitting right there. Inside it were some small silk flower decorations. Without thinking much about it, Sheri picked up one Croc and pushed a single silk flower into one of the holes. That was the beginning.
Lexie looked at it and said, "Mom, I really love that." One word from her, and her siblings piled on too — the whole family spent the rest of the afternoon filling shoe holes with flowers, buttons, whatever they could find.
That evening, her husband Rich came home from work. He looked at the row of colorful shoes lined up on the table, and Sheri says she could practically see the lightbulb go off over his head. "Each Croc has thirteen holes in it… there might actually be something here."
The couple filed a patent right away. They named it "Jibbitz."
They launched the website on August 9, 2005 — their wedding anniversary. Two days after the site went live, a local TV station covered it. From there, it took off.
On October 3, 2006, Crocs announced it was acquiring Jibbitz. The terms: $10 million in cash, plus another $10 million if they hit performance targets. A year and a half after one flower got pushed into one hole at a kitchen table.
What I actually want to take from this is something much smaller. Something your kid said today, some tiny scene you noticed at the table, that moment you thought "huh, that's a little odd" — don't let it just slide by. Write down one line. That's it. That's the whole thing.