Dumb Ideas That Led To Million Dollar Businesses

Flowbee: The idea of a haircut without a single strand falling on your sleeve looked impossible until a California carpenter Rick Hunts invented Flowbee and patented in 1987. The idea of attaching a hair cutting system with a vacuum cleaner seemed foolish, daring and dumb. But by 2000, he managed to sell 2 million units of the machines amidst grand popularity. More than using it on humans, it is popularly used to groom dogs and other pets without much hassle.

Wacky Wall Walker: It’s a toy molded out of an elastomer, a polymer having both viscosity and elasticity, which was quiet popular in the early 1980s.

It was shaped like an octopus which was sticky enough to scale down the walls and entertain people all over. In a short span it became a craze in the toys section, introduced by Ken Hakuta. He saw it in Japan, brought it in U.S. by purchasing the rights of it. Soon the market was flooded with similar looking toys trying to imitate the wacky wall walker like scorpions, spiders, caterpillars, Spiderman, and many others. Kelloggs started putting these into their cereal boxes as gifts. By the time it went into memory lane, it made a whooping $80 million for the Hakuta.

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