10 WTF Business Stories
Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You1. Canadian Porno Pizza Proves Once Again - Sex Sells
Porno Pizza in Winnipeg has been doing brisk business since opening last week, titillating the hungry with racy pictures at the bottom of every pizza box. “They range from softly-lit, lube-on-the-lens pictures like in Playboy, to raunchy, hardcore photos that would make (porn publisher) Larry Flynt blush,” pizzeria owner Corey Wildeman said. “The image is revealed as you eat the pizza.”
2. Poop Scooping Millionaires
The most noted pioneer in the poop-scooping business is Matthew Osborn, who runs Pooper-Scooper.com. He never knew that this business would one day make him a millionaire. Osborn got started back in 1987 when he opened Pet Butler in Columbus, Ohio. "I had been interested in small-business ideas since I was a kid," he says. "My friends thought it was an interesting but far-out idea, and many of them just couldn't grasp the concept. They all said, 'People aren't going to pay you for that.'"
3. How Unknown Designer Tricked Stars Into Taking Her Purses To Oscar
It was Friday afternoon, two days before the Oscars, and Lauren Merkin, a little-known New York handbag designer, waited inside her room at the swank Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, hoping that the $31,000 she had invested in producing a collection of 65 one-of-a-kind "Red Carpet" bags for Hollywood's biggest evening was about to pay off.
4. The Richest Piano Player You've Never Heard About
After ten years of university training in classical piano, Lorie Line finally landed her first job as a professional musician. For $40 a day she was hired to tickle the ivories every afternoon at Dayton's department store in downtown Minneapolis. Wedged between handbags and lingerie, she serenaded shoppers with a seamless stream of pop tunes - and occasionally gave directions to the restroom - without missing a note. But the young pianist in the glamorous black gown was definitely resourceful. After noticing shoppers lingering around the girdle racks listening to her play, she figured she had the start of a fan club. So she cashed in her husband's 401(k) and used the $2,000 to record a CD, which she stacked on a corner of the piano to sell. It proved to be as popular as the push-up bra. Within three years she had sold more than $1 million worth in Dayton's.
5. Pregnant Woman Finds A Strange Way To Make Money Online
When Holly was pregnant a few years back in 1999, she looked for a unique way to tell her friends and family of her pregnancy. Making phone call after phone call to every cousin, aunt and uncle was a daunting task, but she still wanted to share her news with everyone. She hunted through stores and on the Internet and all she could find were birth announcements. Thus, Holly's idea for Fetal Greetings was born.
6. How To Make Millions Destroying Something
Looney Bins found a market niche by contracting with local Hollywood movie studios to deconstruct movie lots containing wood, cardboard, metal, plastic, and other salvageable items; Looney Bins then sells and/or donates the recovered materials. Some of the uses promoted by Looney Bins have included providing wood to a company that makes reconstituted pallets; reusing Warner Bros. Studios' telephone poles for the Special Olympics; shipping reclaimed nails, screws, and other building materials to hospitals overseas; and helping a Southern California nursery reuse wood scrap for planter boxes.
7. How To Turn $5000 To $25 Million In 5 Years Selling To … Babies
Most great ideas are born from a need. The Baby Einstein Company LLC based in Littleton, Colorado, came from Julie Aigner-Clark’s need for a learning tool for her infant daughter. In 1995, this former teacher and new mom read the latest research regarding babies’ capacity to learn. Finding nothing in stores that used the research and that was developmentally appropriate, educational and fun, Aigner-Clark (pictured with daughters Sierra, 3, and Aspen, 6) decided to create something herself.
8. How One Guy Became A Millionaire Selling Antenna Balls
As Jason Wall sees it, success is all about having a ball. Since 1998, Wall has been topping car antennas with happy faces, 8-balls and even cowgirls - complete with braids and hats. Wall is president and CEO of In-Concept Inc., the company behind Antennaballs.com, which manufactures more than 500,000 custom antenna balls per month.
9. How To Make A Ton Of Money From Balsam
Wendy and her husband Jack moved from East Brunswick, New Jersey to Maine in 1979 with a dream of building their own home and have a simple, natural life. Wendy, then 24, even went back to college to study the newest methods of farming in anticipation of their new life because “that's what we thought we would do when we came up here.” Their hope was simply to lead a self-sufficient life. As she puts it, “we didn't want to become big farmers.” The reality, however, was not easy.
10. Big Money In Coming Up With Domains For Others
At the beginning of the ‘dot com’ era you could get paid thousands of dollars for a single domain name if it caught the attention of the right people. Dmitry Davydov’s success online went something like this, except he charged a measly fifty dollars for each domain name that he came up with. The buyers liked it since it was risk free and they didn’t have to pay anything if they didn’t like the name. Dmitry liked the idea because every single domain name he sold meant fifty dollars gotten doing something that he enjoyed. Soon enough The San Francisco Chronicle got wind of his story and with the fame came more customers. Crowd sourcing became the next step for Dmitry and the rest is history.
The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions
IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy
101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads
Make Your Ideas Mean Business
Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You
posted by UncommonBusiness @ 1:52 AM
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