From Unemployed to Creating a $200 Million Empire by Erasing Mistakes: Who Was the Creator of the Correction Fluid

Most of the million-dollar businesses arise from everyday problems, and that was exactly the case for a woman who transformed a work-related difficulty into one of the most successful school supplies of the 20th century. The impact of this product was so significant that it is still used today.

Without investors, without a college education, and with the responsibility of raising her son alone, Bette McMurray found a very simple solution for a task that millions of people repeated every day. That creativity changed her life and ended with the sale of her company for a fortune.

Bette Clair McMurray was born in Dallas, United States, in 1924, into a lower-middle-class family. Her mother was a visual artist and managed a yarn store, while her father worked in an auto parts store. The lack of financial resources made it impossible for Bette to access higher education.

At 17, she left school and married Warren Nesmith, soon after having her son, Michael, while her husband participated in World War II. When he returned to the country, their relationship was already going through a severe crisis, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1946.

With a very young child and no financial support, Bette decided to study secretarial skills to find a job. Gradually, she advanced within a bank until she became, in 1951, the executive secretary to the board president. At that time, she earned $75 a week, which barely covered her expenses. In 1954, the bank replaced traditional typewriters with IBM electric models, making the new keys much more sensitive and errors more common.

At that time, a single mistake meant having to rewrite the entire page, as there were no tools to erase a wrong letter or digital files to correct the text. Bette then recalled a lesson she had learned from her mother: "When a painter makes a mistake, they do not discard the entire painting; they simply cover the error with a new layer of paint."

With that idea, she prepared a mixture of quick-drying white tempera and started bringing small bottles to the bank. Every time she made a mistake, she painted over the incorrect letter, waited a moment, and wrote over it again. The method caught the attention of other secretaries, who began to ask her for the product, allowing her to discover that the solution could become a business.

After work hours, she continued experimenting in her kitchen, sought information in public libraries about paints and pigments, and consulted a chemistry teacher to perfect the formula until she obtained a liquid that covered the paper so it could be written on.

At first, she named the venture Mistake Out Company, although she still had to combine this activity with her job at the bank because she could not afford the cost of a patent, which was $400, more than a month's salary for her.

For several years, Bette maintained a double routine. She fulfilled her shift at the bank and, at night, manufactured the bottles with her son Michael (now a teenager) and some of his friends, who helped with the packaging and order preparation. The big change in her life came in 1958 when, while drafting an official letter from the bank, she signed the document with her company's name instead of the financial institution's.

That mistake led to her dismissal, but it also became the opportunity she needed to dedicate all her time to the venture. That same year, she managed to gather enough money to register the brand and applied for the patent. She also replaced the original name with a much more memorable one: Liquid Paper.

The product began to grow to the point that large companies like IBM and General Electric started placing orders, while production moved from the family kitchen to its own plant. By 1964, the company was selling 260,000 bottles a year, and just four years later, in 1968, the number rose to 1 million units annually. By the mid-1970s, sales reached 25 million bottles a year.

The success attracted the attention of large international companies, and in 1979, Gillette acquired Liquid Paper Company for $47.5 million. If that amount is adjusted for inflation, it would be about $200 million. Bette passed away in 1980, less than a year after finalizing the sale, following a stroke. She was 56 years old and had a net worth of $50 million.

Before her death, she created two foundations dedicated to supporting women artists and entrepreneurs. She also left $25 million to her son Michael Nesmith, who became famous worldwide as a member of The Monkees and later developed a successful career as a film producer.