Apple to Kick Off 50th Anniversary with Nearly $140b Quarter

“The two Steves made a last trip to the Homebrew Computer Club and demonstrated the Apple I (AKA: The Apple Computer). Paul Terrell, who operated the computer store chain Byte Shop, was impressed, and gave the two Steves his card, asking them to keep in touch. The next day, Jobs visited Terrell at the Mountain View Byte Shop store, and tried to sell him the bare circuit boards for the Apple I. Terrell said he was only interested in purchasing the machine fully assembled, and that he would order 50 assembled computers and pay US$500 each on delivery (equivalent to $2,800 in 2024). Jobs took the purchase order from the Byte Shop to national electronic parts distributor Cramer Electronics, and ordered the components needed. When asked by the credit manager how he would pay for the parts, Jobs replied, "I have this purchase order from the Byte Shop chain of computer stores for 50 of my computers and the payment terms are COD. If you give me the parts on net 30-day terms I can build and deliver the computers in that time frame, collect my money from Terrell at the Byte Shop and pay you." To verify the purchase order, the credit manager called Paul Terrell, who assured him if the computers showed up, Jobs would have more than enough money for the parts order. The two Steves and their small crew spent day and night building and testing the computers, and delivered to Terrell on time. Terrell was surprised to receive a batch of assembled circuit boards, as he had expected complete computers with a case, monitor and keyboard. Nonetheless, he kept his word and paid the two Steves the money promised.”

I guess you were thinking of Steve Wozniak trying his earlier design to HP and got rejected (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.#Pre-foun...: “Wozniak originally offered the design to Hewlett-Packard (HP), where he worked at the time, but was denied by the company on five occasions”)

So, Wozniak got rejected trying to see his design to a computer company, but the two Steve’s did manage to sell machines via a computer shop (possibly the only computer shop in the world, at that time).