The Lighter Side: 3 Crazy Business Ideas

by Michael Good Posted on August 4, 2012

Stumped for ideas for your make-it-big business? These 3 businesses should help get the juices flowing.

photo by 401(K) 2012

1. The Million Dollar Homepage Alex Tew created a homepage and decided to sell 1 million pixels at a dollar a piece. He got a ton of press and made his million!

2. Hungry Pod After Catherine Keane helped a friend load CDs onto her iPod, she thought others might like that same kind of help. She now makes $100K plus loading CDs onto iPods.

3. Lucky Break Wishbone Why wait for thanksgiving for your lucky break? Ken Ahroni makes plastic wishbones and sells them for $1 a piece. He sells more than 30,000 of them a month. Not bad!

Question: Everyone has had some crazy business ideas. What was one of yours?

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  • http://www.threedimensionalvitality.com/ Ann Musico

    Wow!  It’s kind of amazing to me what people will pay for!  It’s actually a little disconcerting when someone will pay for a plastic wishbone or a pixel on a webpage but want pertinent information for free.  I guess I have to start thinking WAAAY outside the box lol!

    • http://rise365.com/ Michael Good

      Ann,

      Isn’t it crazy! You’re right. These people were thinking outside the box! Like I mentioned to Brent, I think the wishbones are really impulse buys or novelty items and there’s not too much rhyme or reason that go into those purchases.

  • Brent Jamison

    It’s amazing how simple some of the ideas are. I guess if you recognize a need there’s a market for it somewhere. But I agree with Ann, it’s crazy some things people pay for. 

    • http://rise365.com/ Michael Good

      Brent,

      I know, right? I think some of these things like the wishbones are impulse buys or even novelty items. There’s often not too much rhyme or reason that go into those purchases.

      Excited about http://www.chicagobearscentral.com/ – (even though I’m not a Bears fan) Go Eagles! ;)

      • Brent Jamison

        Thanks for the plug, Michael. I have a question though. How do you get the top commenters to post in the sidebar?

        • http://rise365.com/ Michael Good

          Sure thing. We use this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/top-commentators-widget/

  • http://danhefferan.com/ Dan Hefferan

    Those are outside the box for sure!
    As i’ve been reading through 100dollar startup, the idea mill is going.

    • http://rise365.com/ Michael Good

      Dan,
      That’s a great book! Got my idea mill totally going too.

  • http://www.fatherofone.com/ Michael Wright

    I’ve got to get outside the box, Michael!  As a comic book reader growing up, I used to love the mail-order items you could buy.  Lots of novelties there – I remember seeing a 20/20 show on this kind of “creativity” for a “Solar Powered Dryer” for like $25 and you’d get a 15 ft piece of rope with instructions!  That’s too crooked of course, but it pays to keep your creative brain thinking.  
    I can’t believe that people would actually pay to have CDs put on iPods.  But that’s me thinking everyone is “like me”.  Well, I guess they aren’t!

    • http://rise365.com/ Michael Good

      Michael, that’s an interesting twist to a clothes line! 

      You mentioning mail order makes me think Tony Hsieh. He got started with a little mail order business as a kid and did quite well!