18000 miles to America
The life and journey of Rose Blumkin: Pioneer of the business model that runs Amazon.
Rose Gorelick Blumkin was born in 1893, in the tiny village of Schedrin, Minsk, Russia (in present-day Belarus). Her mother ran a grocery store and her father was a rabbi, a Jewish spiritual teacher. She belonged to a humble household where she and her seven brothers slept on straw on the bare floor, as their father couldn’t afford a mattress.
“I was six years old when I found out that in Russia, pregnant Jew women cut open and their kids were taken out. Then on, I made my mind to go to America.”
It was nothing but a dream, which others wouldn’t even dare to have.
Then, at the age of thirteen, she walked 18 miles barefoot to the nearest train station, (to save the leather soles of her brand-new shoes), and boarded a train to Gomel. She hid under the train seat during the whole journey to save money.
After arriving there, the four-foot-ten-inch girl roamed the streets of Gomel, knocking on doors and asking for a job.
“….I am not a beggar. Let me in your house and I’ll show you, how good I am.”
She managed and supervised six married men in business, by the age of sixteen. And four years later, she married a shoe salesman, Isador Blumkin. But that same year, World War I broke out and she made up her mind. She sent her husband to America and started saving for herself. Then finally in 1916, she got her chance and boarded the Trans-Siberian Train to China. She rode through Manchuria (Yes, the place where Manchurian originated) to Tientsin, China, from where she boarded a boat to Yokohama, Japan. And finally, boarded Ava Maru, a cargo boat carrying peanuts from Yokohama to Seattle, United State of America. Thus covering 18,000 miles to reach America and three months of the tiring journey.
With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), she could join her husband, Isadore. They soon shifted to Omaha, due to a significant number of Russian immigrants there. The primary reason being, she couldn’t read or write in English.
“I was too dumb. They couldn’t drill it in me with a nail. My kids taught me.”
After trying out various businesses, she found out that furniture selling was a “happy business”, and as a result, the Nebraska Furniture Mart was born. She used to sell the furniture with a hair thing profit margin (e.g if she bought for $10, she would sell for $10.1), thus making a profit by bulk selling. The prices were so cheap that either her competitors perished or she acquired their businesses. Her motto is, “Sell cheap and tell the truth, don’t cheat nobody and don’t take no kickbacks.” It is the same business model that Amazon uses, i.e., making a profit by selling huge volumes of products. Similarly, it is used by Indian Retail store chains, such as Vishal, Big Bazar, and so on.
But, the sellers were not happy with her. One example being, Mohawk Carpet Group Inc. filed a lawsuit against her. When called, she showed up alone. When asked by the judge, her reply was
“…I sell everything ten percent above cost, what’s wrong? I don’t rob my customers.”
The case has dismissed and the next day, the judge went out to the Nebraska Furniture Mart and bought $1400 worth of carpets. And as her popularity grew, she earned the name “Mrs.B.”
She had a soft spot for immigrants and refugees, and used to put them to work in the bookkeeping department, telling them “You don’t need English to count.”
Enter, Mr. Warren Buffett. The billionaire sage of Omaha. In 1982, she revealed in an interview to the Omaha World-Herald that she was getting many offers to buy her company and one of them from Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. To which she told Buffett, “You’ll try to steal it.” Buffett’s opinion about Mrs. B. was:
“If I want to start a business and have to choose between top 25 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and Mrs. B. to run it; I am going with Mrs. B.”
A year later Buffett got an opportunity of buying the whole business with Mrs. B.’s conditions. The only question Buffett asked was “Do you have debt?”, which Nebraska Furniture Mart didn’t have. And the deal was sealed at $60 million. Mrs. B. went on to live till the age of 104 and working till 103. She sold her business at the of 91. She is indeed an inspiration. Her advice to the next generation was
“First, honesty.”
“Second, hard work.”
“Next, if you don’t get a job you want right away, tell them you’ll take anything. If you’re good, they’ll keep you.”
On April 7, 1993, the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce put her in the inaugural class of its business hall of fame, alongside Buffett. And Buffett as a gesture of appreciation (for the first time in public) sang a song for Mrs. B. on her 100th birthday. Her love for America was so immense that at family events, she insisted that her favorite song “God Bless America”, be played every time, sometimes even more than once.
INDEED HER LIFE IS AN INSPIRATION FOR EVERYONE THERE.
Source:
Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.
