Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, was born in 1926 in Smaland, a small town in southern Sweden.

He grew up on Elmtaryd Farm, near the small village of Agunnaryd. Ingvar was determined to start his own company when he was young. At first he sold matches to neighbors on his bicycle. I found that I could get very low prices by buying matches in large quantities from Stockholm, then reselling them at very low prices, and still making a decent profit. Subsequently, the scope of his business continued to expand and he began selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds, ballpoint pens and pencils, etc.