Who invented multi level marketing?

The first formal, legally recognized Multilevel Marketing compensation plan was a simple unilevel plan that was introduced back in 1932 by a company called Wachter's, a California based nutritional company. In 1939 California Vitamins, which was launched five years earlier by Carl Rehnborg, changed their name to the Nutrilite Corporation, also a seller nutritional products. Nutrilite contracted with a company owned by Lee Mytinger and William Casselberry who developed Nutrilite's original multilevel compensation plan. Although the Wachter's MLM plan predates Nutrilite's, Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry are generally recognized as having introduced the first substantial, mainstream MLM income opportunity.

Among the earliest known direct sales companies within the U.S. include Watkins (opened 1868), Avon (opened as California Perfume Co. 1890-1936), Fuller Bruch (1905), Stanley Home Products (1931), and Tupperware (1945). However, these companies did not adopt multilevel compensation systems until much later. Watkins first employed an MLM compensation plan in 1973, with the others all following suit within the 1990s.