“While many of America’s founding fathers were business owners, one in particular stood out as one of history’s greatest entrepreneurs: Benjamin Franklin. His many useful inventions include bifocals, an odometer, the lightning rod, swim fins, watertight bulkheads for ships, and the wood stove.” courtesy of Ben Franklin 300
3 Franklin Facts:
- Franklin didn’t patent any of his inventions or scientific discoveries, since he believed that everyone should be able to freely benefit from scientific progress. In this way, he was sort of an eighteenth century open-source advocate.
- Franklin organized weekly meetings of a small group of other tradesmen and artisans, called a Junto. At their weekly meetings they asked how they “may be serviceable to mankind? Junto is still meeting to this day. (link to Junto)
- Franklin noticed that almost a third of his fellow settlers in Pennsylvania were German-speakers, and promptly launched the Philadelphische Zeitung – the first newspaper printed in German in the colonies.
Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and blogger that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia Start-Ups . Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.
