ChapStick’s whole formula was sold for $5 before it took off.
Dr. Charles Fleet invented a lip balm in the late 1800s but couldn’t sell it, so in 1912 he sold the rights to John Morton for $5. Morton and his wife made it in their kitchen and sold it locally. In 2024, Suave Brands acquired that $5 balm from Haleon for roughly $510 million.
ChapStick on Brandseum