Paint is more popular than football
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Do you ever wonder what the financials look like on some of the biggest non-tech companies in the world?
We scoured financial reports to come up with the data in this email to show you just how much money there is in non-tech businesses.
Every property owner, handyman, painter, or even just normal people have probably heard of Sherwin Williams.
And cover the earth they have. As of today’s date, the entire company is worth 62.09 billion dollars.
In 2021 Sherwin Williams did $19,944,60,000. That’s a lot of numbers. It feels better in words. 19 billion dollars in total sales. Don’t believe me? This number comes straight from their filings to the SEC.
How exactly does a company that supplies paint become worth more than the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Rams, Real Madrid, and FC Barcelona combined?
Click here for a list of NFL Team valuations
1. Time
The Sherwin-Williams Company was founded by Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams in 1866. You read that right, 1866.
That’s so far back that we had to google “how many years ago was 1866?”
That is a long time.
Also in 1866 Coca-Cola created its first soft drink, a group of 10 Native Americans killed 81 American soldiers, and according to the Library of Congress the population of California was about 300,000(current population is 39.24 million).
So yeah, that’s what the world looked like back then.
If you are frustrated that you aren’t a millionaire yet, don’t worry. Building a business is a long term play. Time is one of the most important factors and can be one of your deepest moats.
2. Innovation
In 1875 Sherwin-Williams started selling ready-mixed paint. Before that, if you wanted to paint you had to buy the ingredients and mix them yourselves. Seems obvious to us today, but not so obvious back when we were basically in the Wild West.
During the 1940s Sherwin-Williams developed Kem-Tone, which made it so that the paint could be water based and dry 10 times faster than traditional oil based paint. This earned them a reward from the American Chemical Society and named the product a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
And in 2016 they registered the first ever paint to be classified as microbicidal, meaning that it kills germs and prevents infection and disease.
All it takes is 3 major innovations over the course of 150 years to build a 60 billion dollar company. That’s just one per 50 years!
Is there a seemingly obvious innovation that your business can take advantage of?
3. Acquisitions
In 2004 Sherwin-Williams had a market cap of only 6 billion dollars. How did they increase the company’s value by 10 times over the next 20 years?
Through acquisitions:
Paint Sundry Brands(295 million dollars)
Duron Inc.(253 million dollars)
M.A. Bruder and Sons
Geocel Holdings Corporation
Valspar Corporation(11 billion dollars)
Sika AG
These strategic partnerships helped Sherwin-Williams to cut down their costs on manufacturing, expand into worldwide sales, and increase the profitability of your company.
Acquisitions and partnerships don’t always have to be in the millions and billions. Is there a partnership that could help you expand your business?
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