Keep pulling the thread on Ingvar Kamprad.
IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad became the eighth wealthiest person in the world before transferring his ownership of the company into a foundation.
The only external capital ever invested in IKEA was a 500 Swedish kroner loan taken by founder Ingvar Kamprad as a child, which was promptly repaid.
In 1948, Ingvar Kamprad decided to add furniture to the IKEA catalog after observing that competing mail-order businesses were successfully selling it.
IKEA opened its first showroom in Elmhult in March 1953 to combat declining consumer trust in the mail-order furniture market and to demonstrate its product quality relative to its low prices.
In the 1950s, the Swedish furniture industry organized a boycott against IKEA, successfully pressuring manufacturers to stop supplying products to the company.
In response to a supplier boycott, IKEA began designing its own furniture in-house and contracting manufacturers to produce these exclusive designs.
IKEA's adoption of the flat-pack furniture model was a key innovation that significantly reduced transportation costs and damage, enabling lower prices for customers.
In 1961, IKEA began sourcing from state-sponsored manufacturers in communist Poland, which by the end of the 1960s was producing 50% of IKEA's furniture.
IKEA's "breathtaking price" product strategy involves offering select items priced at least 50% below any competitive or substitutable product.
In June 1965, IKEA opened a nearly 500,000-square-foot flagship store on the outskirts of Stockholm, which cost 17 million kroner and was architecturally inspired by the Guggenheim Museum.
The Stockholm flagship store generated 70 million kroner in sales in its first year of operation, effectively doubling IKEA's total company revenue.
IKEA grew its annual revenue from approximately $20 million in the mid-1960s to $2 billion by the 1980s.