If you look around, you’ll see there is no universal way to become rich.
Sometimes even the wildest ideas can become really successful and make you a millionaire.
And that's exactly what happened to these 12 ordinary people...
Joy Mangano and The Miracle Mop Back in the 90s, Joy Mangano, an airline reservations
manager, had had enough of ordinary mops.
So she invented her own plastic Miracle Mop that’s easy to ring out without getting
your hands wet.
With a little help from her friends and her own savings, she manufactured 100 units and
started selling them at trade shows.
And her persistence and passion paid off; by 1995 she’d earned her first million!
This success inspired her to create and patent more than 100 other useful things, like Huggable
Hangers, Forever Fragrant, and many others.
Famous American director David O. Russell even made a biopic about Mangano called Joy.
Guy Laliberté and Cirque du Soleil Guy Laliberté was a simple street artist
when he got the idea to establish a unique circus.
In 1984 he got a government grant and created his own “circus of the Sun,” or, as people
now know it, Cirque du Soleil.
Originally, Cirque du Soleil was a one-year project, but it put on such terrific shows
that the government of Quebec decided that it should perform in other provinces as well.
Needless to say, Guy was involved in the creation of every Cirque du Soleil show right from
the beginning.
This crazy idea brought Guy a few billion dollars and allowed him to become the first
ever Canadian space tourist.
Richard T. James and the slinky One of the first things that comes to mind
when you think about the 90s is a bright rainbow slinky.
Remember those?
They were actually invented by naval engineer Richard T. James back in 1943!
One ordinary day, when he was working with tension springs, he accidentally dropped one
of them.
Richard was fascinated by the way the spring kept moving after hitting the ground and it
gave him a brand new toy idea.
His wife came up with the name “slinky”, and by Christmas, the couple had already made
400 toys.
The success was phenomenal; the toys became a huge hit and were sold within just 90 minutes!
Slinkies are still going strong, by the way, with about a quarter of a million of them
sold every single day.
Gary Dahl and Pet Rock Pet Rock's massive success actually originated
from one simple joke.
The future founder of the company, Gary Dahl, was hanging out with his friends in a bar,
listening to them complaining about their pets.
“You know what the perfect pet would be?
A rock,” Gary joked and that's how the idea was born!
Dahl started selling rocks as pets, complete with funny and witty instruction books detailing
how to take care of the rock; when to walk it, and what to do if it got sick or died.
Dahl's business lasted only 6 months but it still made him a millionaire.
Byron Reese and SantaMail Getting a letter from Santa is the ultimate
dream, right?
That's what lead Byron Reese to open up his own SantaMail company.
Reese found a legitimate address in the North Pole and started to send letters from Santa
to kids all over the world.
The letter looks real, with a stamp that would convince even the most skeptical child.
The service costs only 10 dollars and Reese takes requests from parents every single year.
Roni Di Lullo and Doggles One day Roni Di Lullo noticed his dog squinting
in bright light.
Normal sunglasses were completely useless, so he decided to make some for the dogs and
call them Doggles!
Lullo did his research and found the perfect anatomic construction to fit dogs' heads and
protect their eyes at the same time.
Obviously, dog owners fell in love with the product and Roni quickly earned his first
million.
But he didn't stop there – he still continues to expand his company and invent new helpful
things for pets.
Ken Ahroni and Lucky Break Wishbone You probably know the tradition to break the
turkey breastbone on Thanksgiving day.
You make a wish and break it, and if you get the bigger part, it’ll come true.
So Ken Ahroni made a whole business out of this popular ritual.
He produces and distributes wishbones for 3 dollars a piece.
Of course, he's a millionaire now and has tons of happy customers.
Jonah White and Rich Bailey and Billy Bob Teeth
Back in 1993, Jonah White went to watch a football game at his university.
In the crowd he saw a guy with the strangest teeth ever laughing and flirting with girls.
White was amazed by his confidence and went up to say hi.
The guy's name was Rich Bailey and they quickly became great friends.
Later they decided to monetize the “ugly teeth” idea and launched Billy Bob Teeth
Inc.
Since then, they’ve sold 20 million pieces of Billy Bob teeth in different designs and
are very rich men.
Joe Pellettieri and Big Mouth Billy Bass (Apparently crazy sucessful ideas need to have “Billy”
somewhere in the name, I guess) Big Mouth Billy Bass, the funny fish that
you’ve probably seen attached to a wall somewhere, was invented by a guy named Joe
Pellettieri back in 1998.
This fish can actually do way more than you think – it moves and sings different songs
when you press the button.
So it's no wonder that it quickly became an extremely popular element of pop culture,
making Pellettieri a very successful and wealthy man.
Gary Clegg and the Slanket In 1997 the lifelong problem of not wanting
to take your hands out from under a blanket was finally solved!
Gary Clegg, a freshman at the University of Maine, got so cozy under the blanket one evening
that he cut a hole in it and stuck his arms through.
A couple hours later, he’d already come up with all the details for his business idea,
which he called the Slanket.
Up to now, the company has sold millions of blankets with sleeves for 35 dollars a piece,
and you can still order your favorite color on the official website.
Alex Craig and Potato Parcel In 2015, 24-year-old mobile app developer
Alex Craig had a fun thought: why not send out potatoes with cute personalized messages?
Yeah.
He quickly founded the Potato Parcel Service and started to promote it on Reddit.
The idea was really simple; you buy a potato on a website and choose an inscription of
no more than 140 words.
The company engraves your words and sends the potato anonymously to any address you
want.
Naturally, Craig's list of customers instantly became super long, helping him earn millions
of dollars.
Jason Sandler and I Wear Your Shirt Jason Sandler, the founder of the I Wear Your
Shirt company, originally got inspired by a British student's Million Dollar Homepage,
which was created to help him raise money for his education.
Sandler, however, used T-shirts to advertise different businesses and wore them for a certain
price.
At first it was just 1 dollar per day and he was the only one who wore the T-shirts.
But this approach turned out to be so effective that he hired more people, and by the end
of the year the price went up to 365 dollars a day!
Sandler earned 5 million dollars through I Wear Your Shirt, but made a decision to close
the company and move forward with another business.
However, sometimes becoming a millionaire isn't about a successful idea – it's about
being in the right place at the right time!
And this is exactly what happened to Philip Ozersky.
He was just a spectator at a baseball game, when Mark McGwire blasted his 70th homer of
the year to set the single-season home run record.
The hit was a line drive into the left-field luxury boxes and the ball bounced right into
Philip's hands!
He sold the ball at auction for 3 million bucks, bought a house for his father, and
donated some money to charity.
So I guess you never really know what's waiting for you around the corner!
And what's the best business idea you've ever heard about?
Let me know down in the comments!
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