Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning: Company origins!

1 / 10 |
William _______ set up a factory in New York in 1806 to make soaps and candles under his name. A hundred years later, they started selling toothpaste in tubes. When they merged with another company that made soap from palm oil and olive oil, they became the world’s largest soap manufacturer. Which company is this?

Answer : Colgate (Colgate-Palmolive)

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2 / 10 |
On January 25, 1881, two inventors made an agreement and formed the Oriental Telephone Company. It was established to sell telephones across the rapidly developing Asian market. Who were these inventors who, between them, patented the ability to transmit sound and store it?

Answer : Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell

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3 / 10 |
On January 25, 1964, some of the University of Oregon track and field athletes founded a company. Called Blue Ribbon Sports, it was meant to distribute Japanese shoes made by Onitsuka Tiger. In 1971, using a waffle iron, they created a new sole for track shoes, which they sold under the name of the Greek goddess of Victory. Which billion-dollar company is this?

4 / 10 |
Launched in 2005, this e-commerce site was started in order to help craftspeople and artists sell their goods around the world. The company’s name is inspired from two words, translated as ‘oh, yes’, which the founder kept hearing in an Italian film. Name the company.

5 / 10 |
Named Western India Vegetable Products Ltd, this company was started in Bengaluru in 1945 to manufacture vegetable oils. It eventually got into making computer hardware and software, becoming one of the top IT companies in the country. By what name do we know it better now?

6 / 10 |
In 1893, drugstore owner Caleb Bradham invented a drink which had sugar, caramel, nutmeg and kola nut extract. It was meant to help with dyspepsia or upset stomach. What did he name the company as?

7 / 10 |
Originally, the founder of this company wanted to call it ‘Twitch’. While rooting around in the dictionary, he came across a word whose definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’, and thought it perfect. Which service got its first name from this entry?

8 / 10 |
In 1952, the government was concerned that Indian women were spending a lot of foreign exchange on beauty products. So, the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded JRD Tata to manufacture them in India. This led to the setting up of which cosmetic company that was named after the French word for Goddess Lakshmi?

9 / 10 |
In 1953, the Rocket Chemical Company was trying to make a product that would prevent corrosion. This is achieved by water displacement. They finally succeeded on their 40th attempt. What product, which eventually became the name of the company, was born this way?

10 / 10 |
In 1976, a tech entrepreneur who was on a fruitarian diet visited an orchard. There, he realised that what he saw would make an excellent name for his new company. First, it sounded fun; second, it would appear ahead of their competitor, Atari, in the phone book. Name the company.