Raised on a small farm in a rural village in Sweden, Ingvar Kamprad the founder of IKEA, is today the richest man in Sweden.

Even from an early age Ingvar showed budding entrepreneurial qualities seeking out many opportunities to make a sale. At 5 years old, Ingvar was selling matches to his neighbours and by the time he was seven, had begun to sell to the surrounding villages on his bicycle. Ingvar went on to sell much more than matches and expanded his range of goods to include flower seeds, greeting cards, Christmas tree decorations pencils and pens and anything else his neighbours would buy from him. Ingvar's potential for selling grew quickly and his small door-to-door business was very successful.

At the age of 17, Ingvar’s father gave him a sum of money as a reward for his achievements in school. Ingvar used this money to fund the retail business that we all now know as IKEA. The name IKEA is derived from a combination of his name Ingvar Kamprad, his farm of Elmtaryd, and home parish of Agunnaryd.

In 1947, Ingvar expanded his small business to include locally manufactured furniture. He later decided to focus solely on selling furniture due to its high demand.

To make IKEA stand out from the competition Ingvar came up with the idea of flat packing the furniture. This idea developed when Ingvar watched a co-worker remove the legs of a table so it would fit into a customer’s car without being damaged. Self-assembly soon became part of the IKEA brand.

To stay ahead of the competition, Ingvar applied many creative solutions to his business model, one of which was to open his first furniture showroom.

Within twenty years, Ingvar expanded the store to several countries around the world. Since the establishment of the first IKEA store almost 50 years ago, IKEA has 301 stores in 40 countries and is still expanding.


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