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United Rentals went from formed-on-Labor-Day to NYSE in months, then a $25B company
Jacobs founded United Rentals and within 13 months leapfrogged Hertz to become the world's largest equipment rental company; Merrill Lynch called it the fastest IPO they had ever seen, and the company is now worth roughly $25 billion.
“Within 13 months, we became number one, leapfrogging, leapfrogging Hertz, which had become the equipment rental, which was the number one equipment rental business in 1965. Another thing we did was we went fast, uh, we went public fast. We formed the company on Labor Day weekend and we were trading on the New York Stock Exchange by December.”
Story
Avis 'We Try Harder': how playing the underdog beat the market leader
Sam recounts how Avis, a clear number-two to Hertz, ran a 1960s campaign openly admitting it was number two ('We Try Harder', 'We're number 2, and that's good for you'). The honesty became a huge hit and Avis briefly took the number-one spot.
“Hertz had this ad campaign called We Try Harder. And then they also had other parts of the campaign that says, "We know we're number 2, and that's good for you." Or, and like, they just like, they like said that they were number 2 and like, this is why we have to work extra hard to beat, to do this. And they ended up becoming number 1 in the market for a little while.”
Steal thisLean into being the underdog in your marketing: admitting you're number two can make customers root for you.
Billy
Joseph Kennedy locked in a hotel room to pump Hertz stock
Sam recounts the founder of Hertz (then a cab company) telling young, rule-bending Joe Kennedy to lock himself in a New York hotel room and run buybacks to make the company look far bigger than it was, then sell into the demand he created.
“The founder of Hertz said, Joe, I need you to lock your— he was young and he goes, he was willing to break the rules. He goes, I need you to lock yourself in this hotel room up in New York and I need you to do a lot of these buybacks so it appears as though we are a lot bigger than we are. And then once people start buying them back, sell them our stuff and you're going to save us.”