The world’s cutest monopoly
Hilger, a medical device salesman, ran a company in Minnesota called JBJ Industries and, in 1986, had cooked up an idea with a few of his friends.
There wasn’t anywhere good to change a diaper. What if they put change stations in public washrooms? They created a fold-out station that could be mounted to a wall, and patented the invention.
The problem was, Hilger needed to get the dads — who weren’t changing diapers from their perches in the boardroom — on his side.
Once he did, the money started rolling in. So did the market share: Koala Kare’s share of the US market is now an estimated 85% .
But no monopoly is created equal. Some, like Koala Kare, grow organically, riding a cultural tide to decades of success. Others, like Google and Apple, face lawsuits from the FTC for monopolistic practices.
When Hilger began to market the tables in the late ’80s, he handed out brochures of a loving family, a baby cradled in a mother’s arms. It did nothing to appeal to mostly male business owners.
