Clorox nearly went bust in its first three years.
In 1913 five men in Oakland, a banker, a lawyer, a bookkeeper, a coal dealer and a miner, each put in $100 to turn salt water into industrial bleach. Nobody bought it, and by 1916 the company was nearly dead. Then Annie Murray, an investor’s wife, pushed for a gentler household bleach and gave away free bottles at the family’s grocery store.
Clorox on Brandseum