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Dick Schulze, the founder of Best Buy and EIX, shares his experiences as an entrepreneur and innovator, including how he tripled his income from his boyhood paper route; quit a retail job when his ideas were not valued; started one consumer electronics store, Sound of Music; then transformed that into Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics store chain in the world.

His lessons of finding opportunities in the ruins of dashed plans -- in Schulze's case, a tornado that destroyed Sound of Music but gave birth to the idea for Best Buy -- still resonate today in a new era of uncertainty.  

 


James C Wetherbe
James C Wetherbe
Richard Schulze Distinguished Professor / Rawls College of Business / Texas Tech University
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Cite this Article

DOI: 10.17919/X9RP4Q
Wetherbe, J. (2014, April 29). EIX interview: Dick Schulze, founder of Best Buy. Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange. Retrieved April 4, 2025, from https://eiexchange.com/content/6-delivering-the-goods-an-interview-with-best-buy
Wetherbe, James C. "Delivering the Goods: An Interview with Best Buy and EIX Founder Dick Schulze" Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange. 29 Apr. 2014. Web 4 Apr. 2025 <https://eiexchange.com/content/6-delivering-the-goods-an-interview-with-best-buy>.

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