You write up a plan, work your socks off and go to the investors pitch. You have a brilliant idea but it doesn’t sell and nobody invests in it, calling the business idea ridiculous!
Well, you might want to direct their attention to this post. 5 ‘What The Heck’ Business ideas that made millions shows you just anything sells once you try it and get the word out there.
Ranked from what I think is the ‘least’ WTH to the most WTH business idea that made millions.
5. Wacky WallWalker Toy
Your mum sends you a toy from a foreign land and you being you start playing with it. Soon you realise the idea’s potential and voila! – you have a business idea. That’s exactly the story of Wacky WallWalker Toy. It is an octopus-like toy with several sticky feet. You would throw it on the wall and it would ‘walk down’ slowly.
In 1983 Ken Hakuta in the US bought the rights for Wacky WallWalker Toy for $100,000 and eventually sold 240 million of those to make an estimated $80million.
Sweet!
4. Doggles
Dogs with goggles? Yeah, why not. Doggles is a commercial brand of sunglasses for dogs in the form of tinted goggles designed to fit the shape of a dog’s head.
Doggles were invented by Roni Di Lullo after she noticed her dog, Midknight, squinting in the sunlight. It was voted as one of the “Most Useless Inventions” in 2009 by Daily Mail. Yet, they were sent to the military dogs in Iraq. Costing around $80, they rake in millions a year.
3. Million Dollar Homepage
The only reason I think milliondollarhomepage is more ridiculous that Doggles is because it made just over a million and required zero effort! Absolutely zero.
Each pixel on the site was sold to advertisers for $1. Alex Stew, studying at the University of Nottingham came up with this idea in 2005. Tew bought a web domain, laid out an area of 1,000,000 pixels, and sold them in 100-dollar blocks. By New Year’s Eve, every pixel bar but one had been sold. Tew make a whopping $ 1,037,100 gross. And he is still going strong!
2. Pet Rock
In April 1975, Dahl was in a bar listening to his friends complain about their pets. This gave him the idea for the perfect “pet”: a rock. A rock would not need to be fed, walked, bathed, groomed and would not die, become sick, or be disobedient. He said they were to be the perfect pets, and joked about it with his friends.
That was it, Pet Rock was born and even though the craze only lasted a year, it made Dahl a millionaire in 6 months. Beat that!
1. Flowbee – A Vacuum Cleaner that Cuts Your Hair
Do I have to say more? It literally is just that. In fact, you can still buy one. The technical description of how it works needs no less understanding than that necessary to comprehend how a gas turbine engine operates, except this one goes with a lot of laughter.
“This revolutionary home haircutting system cuts your hair evenly into the recessed blades and trims it precisely. The results are a refreshing vacuum haircut.” You Bet!
That’s all folks. And now, if you will excuse me, I need to think of a WTH idea that will make me a millionnaire!
Image Credit: ReadWrite.com
