6 strange ideas that made people millionaires
Miscellaneous / / September 26, 2023
You never know what crazy offer will be met with crazy demand.
1. Cat meme site
This story began in January 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii. One day, Eric Nakagawa, a lonely software developer, had a hard day: overtime, pressing deadlines - everything as usual. And he asked his girlfriend, Kari Unebasami, to send him something that will cheer him up.
Kari sent Eric a pack cat photos with spelling errors in captions. The funniest of them was a photo of a British shorthair cat asking the question “I Can Has Cheezburger?” (“Can I have a cheeseburger?”).
Eric and Kari found the pictures so funny that they decided to work together to create a website dedicated to cat memes called I Can Has Cheezburger. It became so popular that by May 2007, 1.4 million people were visiting memes with cats every day. And by July Nakagawa sold resource for two million dollars.
All it took for a couple of friends to become millionaires in less than a year was to share some stupid ideas with the world. memes about cats.
2. Stones are pets
On an April evening in 1975, Gary Dahl was drinking at a bar with his friends. They complained that their pets require a lot of attention, drop their fur everywhere, act out, and also spend a lot of money on them. Gary responded by joking that the ideal pet is a rock. He does not need to be fed, walked, bathed or brushed. He won't suit Houses disorder, will not get sick or die.
Gary liked the joke so much that he launched business selling “home stones”. He placed them in beautiful packaging with a Pet Rock print, which also included straw to make the rock cozy, and a 32-page booklet with care instructions. Thanks to the convenient handle, the cardboard box also served as a carrier, and it had holes for ventilation so that the stone had something to breathe.
Gary Dahl bought the stones at a hardware store near the beach in the Mexican city of Rosarito for a cent apiece.
The booklet included indicatedthat the stone cannot carry out the commands “Give a paw”, “Come” and “Stand up”, but it perfectly understands the commands “Lie down”, “Sit” and “Freeze”. In addition, the pet is able to protect the owner from a robber no worse than a fighter dog — you just need to take a cobblestone, swing it and throw it at the attacker’s head.
Sets with pet stones Gary Dahl became sell at the Gift Show summer market for $4 each. And what do you think? He sold out everything he had and received 4.5 thousand pre-orders. By October 1975, Dahl was selling 10 thousand stones every day. Almost 1.2 million Americans became his customers, and he earned about $6 million.
Naturally, most people bought the pet stone simply as a fun souvenir to prank their friends. But there were also those who really expected the cobblestone to be alive, and pestered Gary with lawsuits. Somehow Dahl even joked: “Sometimes I wonder: What would happen if I said my rocks were edible?”
3. Spring toy
In 1943, US Navy mechanical engineer Richard James have worked on the creation of a new spring suspension for ship instruments. During the next experiment he accidentally dropped one of the metal springs. And he was amazed at how she jumped and rolled on the floor. Then he decided to study this phenomenon more closely.
James began experimenting with different materials and shapes of springs, hoping to make them "walk." After several years of research, he managed to create the first prototype of his toy.
It was a long metal spring capable of independently descending stairs, moving along inclined planes, and even jumping over obstacles.
James's wife, Betty, at first reacted I was skeptical about my husband’s hobby, but when I saw the finished toy, I was delighted and suggested calling it “Slinky.” slinky - “graceful, smooth”). Richard founded James Industries, opened a store in Albany, New York, and began stamping springs using a machine he designed and built himself.
The Slinky was released to the market in 1945 and was an incredible success. In its first 10 years, the company sold 100 million springs at a dollar apiece. Adjusted for inflation, the equivalent income was 6 billion modern dollars.
When his wife filed for divorce in 1960, Richard James left James Industries. He gave up everything, became an evangelical missionary in Bolivia and died 14 years later.
Betty James became the sole owner of the company, was inducted into the American Toy Hall of Fame, lived to be 90 years old and sold more than 300 million Slinkys. When asked what was the secret of the popularity of the spring toy, she answered: “It’s all about its simplicity!”
4. Talking fish
Joe Pelletieri worked for many years as a buyer for various department stores in the Midwestern United States. One fine day he decided to find something more interesting to do and got a job at a small Texas company, Gemmy Industries, producing toys. She sold mechanical singing sunflowers, but sales were small.
In 2000, while traveling on vacation, Joe and his wife Barbara came in to a store for hunters and fishermen and noticed a stuffed huge fish on the wall. And Barbara suggested that Joe make a singing toy - a fish - instead of a sunflower.
Returning from vacation, Pelletieri filed idea companies. At first, Gemmy Industries management hated the fish who sang "Take Me to the River" because everyone thought it was stupid. But suddenly Big Mouth Billy Bass, as the toy was called, became an incredible hit.
In nine months of sales, the singing fish, which was supposed to be hung on the wall, brought more than $100 million, and Joe Pelletieri became vice president of the company.
Billy Bass and his variations are still sold today. Now you can even buy fish with built-in Alexa voice assistant.
5. Pixels on a web page
In 2005, a 21-year-old student from Wiltshire named Alex Tew decided to launch his own website. His goal was quite banal: to make money university education.
He created a website on which he posted a grid measuring 1,000 by 1,000 points, that is, there were a million of them in total. One pixel cost $1, and anyone could purchase a piece of virtual “territory” to leave an image on it with a link to their website or advertising slogan.
It would seem that such a project could hardly interest anyone, but suddenly the site went viral. Entrepreneurs, companies and just people who wanted to get their share of fame bought pixels, creating a colorful mosaic of images and links on the site.
By January 1, 2006, there were only 1,000 free pixels left on the site.
Alex decided to put them on eBay. The auction ended on January 11th with the final points selling for $38,100. As a result, income from the site and auction made up an astounding $1,037,100.
Overall, inventive student I not only saved up for education, but also earned an extra penny. However, its success attracted the attention of hackers. During the auction, the site suffered a DDoS attack. The attackers demanded a ransom in exchange for stopping it, but Alex refused to give in. As a result, the page was inaccessible for a week until the security system was upgraded.
Alex Tew's website visit and now, but you can’t buy anything there anymore - all the pixels are sold out.
6. The application that blows the winds
In the early days iPhone and the App Store, there were incredibly popular joke apps that made funny sounds, showed funny pictures, and entertained users in other similar ways. Among them were many programs that simulated the sounds of flatulence. The very first, most popular and most profitable of these was iFart.
Application created Joel Komm, CEO of InfoMedia and founder of ClassicGames, a multiplayer gaming site that was acquired by Yahoo! in 1997. In general, he was not new to the world of entertainment.
Joel Comm launched iFart in 2008. The app looked very simple and offered over 30 different gas sounds.
iFart also had a Sneak Attack feature, which allowed you to quietly imitate an obscene sound to pretend that someone standing next to you did it. And also Security Fart, which started playback if someone tried to use the iPhone without asking.
When the app first appeared on the App Store, it price was only $0.99. Despite the fact that Apple took 30% of sales, Komm managed earn up to $9,200 per day. This was truly an impressive achievement. Especially considering that the company initially did not believe in the potential of such applications and rejected them due to “limited usefulness” (over time, Apple changed its mind).
iFart has quickly become one of the most popular paid iPhone apps. Even celebrities such as actor George Clooney, singer and TV presenter Kathie Lee Gifford and athlete Lance Armstrong have installed it on their smartphones.
In the end Joel Comm sold million dollar app. Not bad for a program that doesn't do anything useful.
InfoMedia, Inc.
Price: 199.00 rubles
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Price: 199.00 rubles
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