17 Dumb Inventions That Made Millions
Simple Million-Dollar Ideas
A popular “sensory” children’s toy made in the mid-1980s featured nothing more than rubbery hairs—and amassed profits of over $100 million.The following inventions are so brilliantly simple—and yet they managed to really rake in the dough. They'll make you scratch your head and think, "Well, I could have thought of that"...Only, you didn't.
Lucky Break Wishbones
Creator Ken Ahroni is the mastermind behind the Lucky Break Wishbone. In 1999, while celebrating Thanksgiving, he observed how many members of his family wanted the turkey wishbone for themselves. He came up with the perfect solution. What if everyone could have their own wishbone?
No Need To Share
Five years later, Ahroni left behind his consulting business and turned his focus on a new venture: the Lucky Break Wishbone Corp. His company sold plastic wishbones, and miraculously, people bought them.
In sales across the US, it reaped close to $1 million.
The Million-Dollar Home Page
The Million-Dollar Home Page came straight from the mind of 21-year-old Alex Tew—a British student looking for a way to fund his college tuition. That's when he came up with his web page.
The page had one million pixels, and Tew wanted to sell each pixel for $1.
$1 Per Pixel
Tew's proposition worked and advertisers got behind him, buying up pixel space. It took a bit longer than 12 months to completely sell out of pixels, making Tew a very rich young man.
