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When the Hungarian academic Ernesto Rubik first revealed a manipulatable wooden cube to his

architecture students back in 1974, he had no idea what it would go on to become.

The professor was looking for the best way to get his class to think about

geometric forms and spatial relationships. When the students clearly loved the puzzle and would

dedicate days and weeks to unscrambling it, he knew he might be on to something. But it takes a lot

more than an idea and even a prototype to ensure success in business. You need money and in the case of physical products like toys,

you need manufacturing and lots of it.

And that can mean giving up some control of your product.

Now, Professor Rubik licensed his product to the American Ideal Toy Company in 1980, which churned out the little cubes in their millions.

Within a few years, the professor was sitting on an incredible success story, his name was famous,

and he'd done it without getting involved in the manufacturing, marketing or distribution himself.

The Rubik's Cube is now still one of the

best-selling toys of all time. However, handing over a product's intellectual property to grow fast

and at scale isn't without its risks. There are numerous cases of licensees imposing pretty

punitive terms on entrepreneurs or cases of the licensee running off with the idea

completely. And how can you, as an inventor, be sure the licensee will stay true to your

original idea, or that it won't be a flop? I'm Evan Davis, and this is the decisions that made me,

a series of interviews from the bottom line team

about the make-or-break moments in the careers of top business figures.

And in this episode, I'm going to hear about a similar decision to the one Professor Rubik

faced more than 40 years ago.

...