We all have ideas that we think can make us millionaires.
Those light bulb moments when you dream up an invention that no else has yet imagined.
In truth very few ideas prove to be successful and for every new creation that turns out
to be a big hit, there are countless others that fail spectacularly.
But amongst the failures are some incredibly simple and often unconventional ideas that
have made their developers hugely wealthy, and sometimes for very little effort.
Which are the best of the best?
That’s what we’ll be looking at in this episode of The Infographics Show: Unlikely
inventions that made millions.
We’ve researched some of the craziest ideas that made people richer than they could have
imaged.
Some of these inventions are weird, wacky or simply did well because of the fun factor,
and others turned out to address a real need.
But what they all have in common is they hit the top of the sales list, as customers couldn’t
get enough of them.
We’ve filtered what we think are the most interesting ones worth talking about, to bring
you our top ten list.
Let’s jump straight in and take a look.
10.
Doggles - Roni and Ken Di Lullo knew something wasn’t right when their dog MidKnight kept
missing the Frisbee during a game of fetch.
In 1997, during a visit to their local dog park San Jose, California, the couple noticed
that their pooch was squinting.
"He seemed to be sensitive to sunlight," Roni recalls.
And so was born an idea for doggy shades - goggle-style sunglasses that they named Doggles.
Initially Roni used a pair of sports goggles and altered them to fit the border collie.
Midknight’s frisbee performance improved and he became the talk of the dog park.
Roni created a website to showcase photos of the pooch modeling his eyewear.
"People love to see a dog wearing glasses," she says.
To her surprise people started contacting Roni asking if they could purchase a pair
of these cool doggy shades, which led her and he husband to explore manufacturing.
And Doggles do more than protect your pet from the sun's glare, they also keep out dust,
debris and wind, and block UV rays and that can lead to medical conditions in the dog’s
eyes.
By 2012 Doggles reached revenue of $3 million in a single year!
Not bad for a pair of shady Rover Ray-Bans.
9.
The Pet Rock - Pet Rock is a collectible that was dreamt up in 1975 by advertising executive
Gary Dahl.
Pet Rocks are smooth stones from Mexico's Rosarito Beach.
Yes, a big pebble sold like a real living pet.
Each Pet Rock came in it’s own custom cardboard box, with a straw and breathing holes.
It was a short-lived fad that lasted about six months and Dahl’s crazy rocks were sold
for $3.95, profiting him $3 per sale.
It’s estimated that he sold more than 1.5 million of them, making him a millionaire
in a very short period of time.
Dahl passed away in March 2015, at age 78.
Speaking to The Washington Post, his wife said the Pet Rock craze “was great fun when
it happened.”
In the telephone interview she also explained that “people would come to her husband with
weird ideas, expecting him to do for them what he had done for himself.
And a lot of times they were really, really stupid ideas.”
8.
The Million-Dollar Homepage - Alex Tew was able to earn almost exactly $1 million through
a truly unique idea he had.
Late one night in August 2005, he lay down in bed with a pen and paper and brainstormed
cheap ideas that he could sell a million of.
Tew came up with pages full of potential creations, including a terrible product he called the
Gum Slinger, which was a small pouch for used chewing gum.
But this entrepreneurial genius knew he would get there eventually and came up with the
idea of selling space on his website as advertisements.
Each pixel on the page would sell at $1 and so a page with 1 million pixels would make
him a millionaire.
When the site went viral, companies, businesses and organizations all around the world jumped
at the chance to have their name plastered on the site.
Tew made his money in just one year.
And more than enough to fund the 21-year-old student’s university fees.
So what happened to Tew?
He actually dropped out of university and went on to launch a number of other tech ideas,
eventually hitting the jackpot with the Calm app.
Today, Calm has 600k paying subscribers, and according online media site The Hustle, the
company is raising a $25m+ round led by Insight Ventures, which will value them at $250m.
7.
iFart app – Yes, it’s true.
An app that acted as a virtual whoopee cushion, with a variety of fart noises to select, the
iFart app became immensely popular and despite its low price of $0.99 went on to make more
than $1 million.
Back in 2008, Wired Magazine reported that the app was making nearly $10,000 in a single
day.
Joel Comm, developer of iFart Mobile, published download statistics of his app at the time,
and it stood at No. 1 overall with over 13,000 downloads.
Comm made a fortune and even appealed to the stars.
In 2015, he publicly reached out to George Clooney after the world famous actor had revealed
in a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, that he loved fart jokes and even kept the
iFart app on his phone.
Comm offered to feature one of Clooney’s farts as a special in-app purchase.
6.
The Mood Ring – In 1975 the Mood Ring hit stores.
It was invented by Joshua Reynolds and marketed them as “portable biofeedback aids”, these
funky finger rings were a piece of jewelry that purportedly changed color to reflect
the your mood at any given time.
Reynolds was able to get the department store Bonwit Teller to stock the product as part
of their accessories line.
Some rings sold for as much as $250, which in the 1970’s was a hefty price tag.
But the 70s’ was also the era of lava lamps, flared jeans and extravagant rock bands like
Led Zeppelin, and within months Reynolds made his first million and turned them into a trendy
fashion item among celebrities such as Barbra Streisand and Muhammad Ali.
Of course the mood ring was a gimmick and though the thermotropic liquid crystals used
in the rings changed color, it was in response to changes in body temperature – but Reynolds
still picked a winner and made his millions.
5.
Magic 8 Ball - If you were to grab the Magic 8 Ball off your desk and ask it “Will The
Infographics Show channel answer all the questions I have and more?” the words “Without a
Doubt” would hopefully emerge through the murky blue liquid.
While Magic 8-Ball did not exist in its current form until 1950, the original idea, the Syco-Seer,
was invented by Albert C. Carter, and inspired by a spirit writing device used by his mother,
Mary, a Cincinnati clairvoyant.
Unfortunately, Carter died before his clever creation found success.
But in 1950, his brother-in-law Abe Bookman was commissioned to turn the Syco-Seer into
a black-and-white 8 ball with a floating 20-sided die.
When the ball is shaken, the die floats to the surface, revealing its answer to your
question about the future.
In 2011 Time Magazine listed it at number 18 of All-TIME 100 Greatest Toys and you can
still buy the Magic 8-Ball today.
4.
Big Mouth Billy Bass - At some point, just about everyone will have seen a talking, singing
fish like Boogie Bass or Rocky Rainbow Trout hanging on the wall of a grocery store, the
local bar or in someone’s home.
None were bigger than Big Mouth Billy Bass.
It all started out with Joe Pellettieri who began his career as a self-professed “numbers
guy” but after nearly ten years of working in retail, he felt it was time to move onto
the next big thing.
One day Pellettieri’s wife turned to him with an unusual proposal, saying “How about
a singing fish on a plaque?
And though it may have sounded crazy to most, Pellettieri thought the idea of a fish on
a plaque singing Al Green was hilarious.
A Texas novelty toy company originally created the device in the late 1990s and for many
years it was an uphill battle until Gemmy Industries took the toy on.
The summer of 2000 was the toys heyday, though Pellettieri and Gemmy are highly secretive
when it comes to divulging the financial success of Billy.
But it has been rumored that the toy made the company over $100m in revenue during its
9-month success high.
A fishy story or the real sales numbers?
We may never know.
3.
The Hula Hoop – The hula hoop has been around for millennia and Native Americans used a
Hoop Dance as a form of storytelling with anywhere from one to thirty hoops as props.
But the modern Hula Hoop was patented by Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud" Melin of the Wham-O
Company, who hold the trademark on the name “Hula Hoop."
In 1958, Wham-O began manufacturing the toy out of plastic tubing and they sold a whopping
25 million hula hoops in the first four months at a price of $1.98 each.
By the end of their second year they has reached 100 million sold and they continue to be one
of the most successful manufacturers of modern hula hoops.
The Hula Hoop was at its peak back in the 1950’s with more than 50,000 hoops being
manufactured every day.
Without a doubt one of the most simple inventions and successful money spinners and ever!
2.
Fidget Spinners - Now to something a little more recent but still a spinner and the must-have
toy of 2017, the Fidget Spinner.
These little spinning toys started flying off the shelves in April of 2017 and several
schools have even had to ban them, due to them being overly-distracting to students.
According to a survey of the 200 largest American high schools, nearly a third have banned fidget
spinners.
The simple design consists of a ball bearing center with flat, spindly lobes attached,
like a little propeller.
All it takes is a flick to start stress relieving toy working it’s magic.
The only catch in this success story is that the Catherine Hettinger, who invented the
anxiety-reducing device more than two decades ago, stopped manufacturing them a long time
ago and since her patent expired last year, she’s had to watch one large company after
another produce and sell different versions of the toy, without needing to pay her anything.
1.
The Slinky - This is arguably one of the most famous toys in the world.
For those living in the Western world it is virtually impossible to have not come across
this spring like toy at some point in your life.
It’s a success story that started many years ago.
The inventor was a man called Richard James and he stumbled across the idea by accident
when a spring fell and wobbled it’s way along the floor.
James and his wife Betty developed a plan to turn his invention into the next big novelty
toy.
Betty came up with the name Slinky, whilst James got to work on designing a machine to
coil an 80 foot long piece of wire into a two-inch spiral spring.
The couple borrowed $500 to manufacture the first Slinkys.
Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia allowed demonstrations for Christmas 1945 and the
first 400 Slinkys sold within minutes.
They even had a TV jingle done, with the words: "What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs,
and makes a slinky sound?
It's Slinky..."
By the time Slinky turned 10 years old, more than 100 million had been sold and according
to Adweek, as of 2015, 350 million were in the hands of customers.
It goes down as one of the most popular toys ever, making a family very wealthy indeed!
That’s our top 10 list, though of course there are many more.
Know any other unlikely inventions that were huge successes?
Let us know in the comments below!.
Also be sure to check out our other video, Could You Pass the Google Interview?
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of The Infographics Show, and please remember to
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