Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

5.13. Lesson 45: Time It

Edison's ultimately failed attempt to make a successful business of electromagnetically separating iron from low-grade ore led to an interest in the possibilities of innovating manufacturing processes to cheaply produce Portland cement of the very highest quality. In part, Edison hoped to recoup a portion of his investment in equipment purchased or built for his iron-refining business by adapting the machinery to cement manufacture. But part of Edison's interest in the cement business was strictly a matter of timing. By 1898, when he began looking into the business potential of making artificial cement—and making it faster, cheaper, and better than anyone else—this commodity was just emerging as the material of choice ...