1989: Solving the 7th Grade Bubble Gum Problem

Leadership often begins long before the title — when you notice unmet demand, take initiative, and act on opportunity. The pattern is simple: see the need, commit with intention, assemble the means, learn from the outcome, and repeat. That loop builds leaders.

Good morning, happy Sunday Friends.

This is a PS. A personal story linked to The Path of a Leader.

As we grow in The Path of a Leader, we see where our efforts align with value creation and leadership which often means seeing opportunities and challenging the status quo.

Despite working for big companies like Gateway Computers, Hearst, Capital One and CBRE, where I did amazing projects with incredibly talented people, I still fondly look back at the early days where it was just an idea and instinct.

Last Sunday we talked about the Pizza Delivery Problem and how I solved it in 1988. 

Today’s article is about supplying a starving market.

In this case, kids in the 80’s held captive from 8am until 3pm in junior high who don’t just want bubble gum, they must have it.

These personal stories are not just about nostalgia—they reveal a pattern I hope you can apply to whatever GSD effort you're currently in.
They also represent the early spark of leadership—when we begin to take initiative, challenge norms, and imagine better ways. That’s the start of The Path of a Leader. Here is the pattern:

• Problem or Opportunity

• Vision

• Intention

• Means

• Outcomes and Learning

• Repeat the Loop

First off, 1989 was a great year for movies.

Indiana Jones the Last Crusade, Batman (with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson), Back to the Future 2 and Dead Poets Society all came out that year.

At the time, I remember being pretty impressed by Fred Savage and this guy Howie Mandell in the move Little Monsters. But the movie that really stuck with me, was Gleaming the Cube with Christian Slater.  It’s the one where he rides skateboards all over town to figure out who killed his adopted Vietnamese brother.  Tony Hawk makes an appearance. I was interested in skateboarding but in my small town few did and there were no sidewalks so you were limited to your driveway.

So imagine this, I’m in 7^th grade, I have an undercut, I’m wearing Airwalks and have a dark colored JanSport backpack.  There might be 120 kids In my grade, the school is small and it’s a one flashing stop light town – no joke.  It was awesome.

If you saw the 1989 sitcom Saved By The Bell, I was more like Zack Morris than A.C. Slater and that school was huge in comparison.

Anyway, the unknown Leonardo De Caprio was doing commercials at the time and he ended up being in a commercial for Bubble Yum.  But I distinctly remember this commercial where they introduced watermelon and strawberry, and thinking this was a pretty big deal!

In school, it was taboo to chew gum, but of course we all did. 

Wrigley’s sticks of gum were standard fair. Peppermint and spearmint were an obvious choice. 

As a long-time baseball player, my personal favorite gum included Double Bubble and the stringy Big League Chew.

But I noticed the popular and ‘cool’ option was Bubble Yum.  Soft, chewy, in a cube, it let you blow huge bubbles and seemed to hold its flavor longer than other gum. It was new and different.

One day at Walmart, with my mom, I was in the gum section. I was looking at a 5 or 10 pack of Wrigley’s, because that was what my mom always had in her purse.  Beside it I saw Bubble Yum and the watermelon and strawberry flavors in singles and high quantity packs.

It hit me, buying a single pack of gum was more expensive than the large package and my brain clicked that it would be a great way to make money at school.

I convinced my mom to buy twenty dollars worth of gum and it included Wrigley’s, Bubble Yum, and Bazooka.  To me, these would all be good options for my burgeoning gum empire.

What I discovered was Bubble Yum, hands down, had demand that was off the charts. I mean, like, trade valuable baseball cards, swap pizza for sandwiches type demand! 

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I became known far and wide in this one light town as the guy with gum, and I was being hit up in the cafeteria, bathrooms, hallways and classroom.

I offered singles or the whole pack. Because we carried cash and kids got change every day from lunch, I worked in dollars and quarters. And the cash was flowing!

I was making regular runs to Walmart and my mom’s original $20 had turned into a regular turn over of $50 to up to $100 a week.  I was quick to ditch the Bazooka and Wrigley’s and only worry about the Bubble Yum flavors.

It was a good time to be in the gum business in Orangefield Texas. 

That is until principal Johnston called me into his office.

I’ve always been a pretty good kid so I was pretty shocked to be called into the Principals office. I remember being both confused and terrified waiting in the chair outside his office.

In fact, I have a 3 minute video from 2017 were I tell this story and even show the school! Have a quick watch and come back. Part of the story is in the video and I left it out of this text - it involves what the Principal did and how I got busted, pretty cool actually.

I don’t want to spoil the video... 

Like many entrepreneurs, the rush for gold ran its course and I got out of the picks and shovels business, that is taboo gum supply business. Sure I was strong armed, but it was a great experience and ended well all things considered.

So, to bring this home, I had a vision of other kids like me enjoying some great and tasty Bubble Yum bubble gum, but I tested demand and doubled down on what worked.  My mom acted as financing to jump started my first $20 of inventory giving me the means to get started and then I set out to tell everyone with intention about my available gum supply! It was all hands on, and it worked.

I wouldn’t say I was solving a problem as much as I was satisfying a desire with a very active buying audience.  And I quickly pivoted to Bubble Yum because while all my Wriggle’s and Bazooka was being bought, the Bubble Yum went fast and everyone was clearly disappointed to have to settle for other options. 

While it’s a simple childhood story, it doesn't skip the fundamentals that still guide us on The Path of a Leader. How might this apply to you?

Do you have a great story about selling something in your childhood? 

Let me know, I love hearing from you.

#ThePathOfALeader
#GSD

Appreciate you,

Justin