Business · 2
What was Fred DeLuca's original financial goal in borrowing $1,000 to open his first sandwich shop in 1965?
Answer
To pay for college tuition
DeLuca took the loan from family friend Peter Buck specifically to cover his college tuition, with no plan at the time to build a restaurant chain.
💡 Did you know?
Subway founder Fred DeLuca started his first sandwich shop at age 17 with a $1,000 loan from a family friend to pay for college tuition, accidentally creating a 37,000-location empire.
Other options people guess
- To buy a new car
- To pay off family debt
- To fund a second store location
Topics
- franchising
- subway
- entrepreneurship
- startup-origins
Know your business trivia?
Play a free Business quiz and see how many you get right — no signup needed to start.
More Business facts
Business
At what age did Fred DeLuca open his very first sandwich shop, the seed of what became Subway?
Subway founder Fred DeLuca started his first sandwich shop at age 17 with a $1,000 loan from a family friend to pay for college tuition, accidentally creating a 37,000-location empire.
Business
Which entrepreneur transformed a small California burger stand he purchased in 1954 into the McDonald's global franchise empire?
Ray Kroc didn't invent McDonald's—he bought a small San Bernardino burger stand in 1954 and turned it into a $200 billion empire by obsessing over systems, not food.
Business
What valuation did Sara Blakely's Spanx reportedly reach despite never taking on outside investors?
Spanx founder Sara Blakely built a $1.2 billion shapewear empire without outside investors or a business degree, using $5,000 in personal savings and door-to-door retail pitching.
Business
In Amazon's logo, the curved arrow connects which two letters to represent the company's vast product range?
Amazon's arrow logo points from A to Z deliberately, but also subtly curves into a smile to suggest customer satisfaction.
Business
Which soft drink brand's 2008 logo redesign was reported to cost $1 million and drew comparisons to the visual branding strategy of Barack Obama's presidential campaign?
The Pepsi logo was briefly redesigned in 2008 with a $1 million rebrand that copied the Obama campaign's visual strategy.
Business
What is the term for the strategy where a company acquires a competitor to gain control of its customer base and eliminate rivalry?
When Standard Oil horizontally integrated by absorbing over 40 rival refineries in the 1870s, it controlled roughly 90% of U.S. oil refining within a decade.