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Some of the most useful inventions in history began as mistakes. One of them is probably on your desk right now: the small yellow sticky note.

In 1968, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, a large company in the United States, was trying to develop a very strong glue for building planes. Instead, he created the opposite: a glue so weak that it held paper in place but could be removed easily, without leaving any marks. Even more strangely, the same piece of paper could be stuck down again and again.

Silver was sure that his glue could be useful, but he did not know for what. For years he spoke about it to anyone who would listen, and he even gave talks about it to other teams in the company. Most of his colleagues thought it was a failure.

The answer came from another 3M worker, Art Fry. Fry sang in a church choir, and he used small pieces of paper to mark the songs in his book. The problem was that they kept falling out. In 1974, he remembered Silver's weak glue and had an idea: what if the bookmarks could stick to the page without damaging it?

Fry and Silver made the first notes, but the company's managers were not impressed. When 3M tested the product in four cities in 1977, very few people bought it. People simply did not understand what it was for. So the company changed its plan and gave away free samples. Once people tried the notes, they loved them. Even the famous yellow colour was chosen by chance: the only spare paper in the lab next door was yellow. In 1980, the product went on sale across the United States under the name Post-it Notes.

Today, billions of sticky notes are used every year. Their story teaches an important lesson: a failure is sometimes just a success that has not found its purpose yet.

Some of the most useful inventions in history began as mistakes. One of them is probably on your desk right now: the small yellow sticky note.

In 1968, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, a large company in the United States, was trying to develop a very strong glue for building planes. Instead, he created the opposite: a glue so weak that it held paper in place but could be removed easily, without leaving any marks. Even more strangely, the same piece of paper could be stuck down again and again.

Silver was sure that his glue could be useful, but he did not know for what. For years he spoke about it to anyone who would listen, and he even gave talks about it to other teams in the company. Most of his colleagues thought it was a failure.

The answer came from another 3M worker, Art Fry. Fry sang in a church choir, and he used small pieces of paper to mark the songs in his book. The problem was that they kept falling out. In 1974, he remembered Silver's weak glue and had an idea: what if the bookmarks could stick to the page without damaging it?

Fry and Silver made the first notes, but the company's managers were not impressed. When 3M tested the product in four cities in 1977, very few people bought it. People simply did not understand what it was for. So the company changed its plan and gave away free samples. Once people tried the notes, they loved them. Even the famous yellow colour was chosen by chance: the only spare paper in the lab next door was yellow. In 1980, the product went on sale across the United States under the name Post-it Notes.

Today, billions of sticky notes are used every year. Their story teaches an important lesson: a failure is sometimes just a success that has not found its purpose yet.

Some of the most useful inventions in history began as mistakes. One of them is probably on your desk right now: the small yellow sticky note.

In 1968, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, a large company in the United States, was trying to develop a very strong glue for building planes. Instead, he created the opposite: a glue so weak that it held paper in place but could be removed easily, without leaving any marks. Even more strangely, the same piece of paper could be stuck down again and again.

Silver was sure that his glue could be useful, but he did not know for what. For years he spoke about it to anyone who would listen, and he even gave talks about it to other teams in the company. Most of his colleagues thought it was a failure.

The answer came from another 3M worker, Art Fry. Fry sang in a church choir, and he used small pieces of paper to mark the songs in his book. The problem was that they kept falling out. In 1974, he remembered Silver's weak glue and had an idea: what if the bookmarks could stick to the page without damaging it?

Fry and Silver made the first notes, but the company's managers were not impressed. When 3M tested the product in four cities in 1977, very few people bought it. People simply did not understand what it was for. So the company changed its plan and gave away free samples. Once people tried the notes, they loved them. Even the famous yellow colour was chosen by chance: the only spare paper in the lab next door was yellow. In 1980, the product went on sale across the United States under the name Post-it Notes.

Today, billions of sticky notes are used every year. Their story teaches an important lesson: a failure is sometimes just a success that has not found its purpose yet.