RIP Thomas Stemberg, Staples founder

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


A quick note on Thomas Stemberg, founder of Staples, who passed away recently at the age of 66.

The concept of an office supply superstore seems rather old-fashioned now with Walmart and Amazon around, back when he started Staples in 1986 it was revolutionary. Until then the office supply category was the domain of specialists. There were larger vendors who catered to big companies, but the small guys were dependent upon the old-fashioned neighborhood office supply stores, with their high prices, limited selection and slow service.

While Stemberg would eventually have Mitt Romney at Bain Capital behind him, he actually by himself stocked the shelves in the early stores to get them up and running.

And although Stemberg, a former grocery executive with a Harvard MBA, probably didn't plan it this way, in my memory it seemed as if Staples pionereed the category of providing a consumer-like msss marketing approach for selling products or services to the SMB and SOHO markets, in turn making it possible for those firms to function as never before.