Bette Nesmith Graham

This secretary got fired for making a typo. Ironic given that she’s the inventor of the correction fluid, which she sold to Gillette for $47M.

Bette Nesmith Graham was an executive secretary at Texas Bank and Trust.

When IBM’s new electric typewriter came along in 1951, her job got a lot harder…

With its carbon ribbon and hypersensitive keys, one typo meant retyping the whole page.

One day, she stood outside the bank watching painters decorate the building’s windows for Christmas.

She noticed they fixed mistakes not by erasing them, but by painting over them.

Back at the office, she brought in a small jar of water-based tempera paint tinted to match her company’s stationery.

She applied it with a watercolor brush, painting over her typos.

It worked. Her boss never noticed.

But other secretaries did.

They wanted some. So she started making small batches at home.

She labeled the bottles “Mistake Out” and gave them to friends.

She mixed the formula in her kitchen blender and poured it into empty nail polish bottles.

By 1956, she was officially selling her product.

She kept refining the formula, working with chemists, and a local polymer expert to perfect the product.

Her breakthrough: a version that dried faster, applied smoother, and didn’t clump.

By 1957, she was selling about 100 bottles/month.

Then, “The Office” magazine mentioned Mistake Out in an article.

Soon after, General Electric placed a bulk order.

She renamed the product: Liquid Paper.

And she was still working her bank job.

Until she accidentally signed a letter “The Mistake Out Company” on her employer’s letterhead.

She was fired.

With no job holding her back, she went all in on Liquid Paper.

She drove from Dallas to Houston and San Antonio to pitch office supply stores.

She even tried to license the product to IBM, sending them two typewritten letters: one corrected with an eraser, the other with Liquid Paper.

IBM said no.

In 1962, she married Robert Graham.

He joined the business and helped scale it nationally.

By 1968, Liquid Paper had a corporate HQ and was producing 1M bottles per year.

Bette embedded her values into every part of the business: on-site childcare, a credit union, and wheelchair-accessible facilities.

Then, in 1975, she divorced Robert Graham.

He was Chairman of the Board at the time.

He convinced executives to bar her from the company and tried to modify the formula.

So it would no longer be protected, and she’d lose her royalty income.

But Bette fought back.

She still owned 49% of the company.

And in 1979, she sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for $47.5M.

Six months later, she died from complications of a stroke at age 56.

She left half her fortune to her son Michael, and the other half to charity.

And she didn’t stop there.

She had already launched two foundations.

The Gihon Foundation, to support women in the arts...

And the Bette Clair McMurray Foundation, to fund career training, scholarships for older women, shelter for battered women, and support for unwed mothers.