Uncommon money makers
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Three months of unemployment and still counting. This means I have another three more months before my parents stop supporting me financially. The pressure is on. The latest online venture that we have been working on was suppose to be up by now, but due to unforeseen circumstances we were forced to delay it. Anyhow, hopefully it will be up by the end of the week. Stay tuned. This is gonna be one experiment that will take the world by storm!
While waiting for it, read on below on how several kids are making their money unconventionally.
1. How this 18 year old kid made a $30 Million dollar a year industry
http://www.lovesac.com/
At age 18, Shawn Nelson was watching TV on the couch when he decided "a huge beanbag thing" might be more comfortable. He bought 14 yards of vinyl, cut it into a baseball shape, and spent three weeks filling it with anything soft he could find.The finished LoveSac was 7 feet wide, and everyone who saw it tried it out and loved it. When neighbors started placing orders, Nelson decided to start his company almost as a joke. With free help from his friends, he made the LoveSacs in his parents' basement and sold them at trade shows, events and even the drive-in.
No one fully expected LoveSac's success not even Nelson himself. He says being committed to solving any problem is vital to his and any entrepreneur's success.
2. Making money from being pregnant
http://www.fetalgreetings.com
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. She wanted to create cards where a little embryo baby could make the announcement of the upcoming birth for her.In June of 2000, Holly took her business online
3. Poop scooping Millionaires
Matthew Osborn
http://www.pooper-scooper.com
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.'"
The business slowly took off, and despite the dirty work, Osborn says he enjoyed satisfying the customers and working outdoors in some of the nicest backyards in Ohio. However, it wasn't all fun and games. "I didn't enjoy driving around in my little Honda Civic with hundreds of pounds of dog poop in the back," he says. "It sort of gave me nightmares until I was able to buy pickup trucks for the business."
Matt Boswell
http://www.petbutler.com
While Osborn may have put poop scooping on the map, Matt "Red" Boswell is taking it into the future. Boswell owns the Texas-based Pet Butler. He recently moved the business out of his house and into a 1,200-square-foot office just north of Dallas. Today, Pet Butler is the largest pet waste removal service in the country, and serves about 3,000 clients.
Boswell explains that at an average of just $10 per visit, nearly anyone can afford Pet Butler's services. "Rarely is Pet Butler considered a luxury service by those who use us," he says. "Most consider Pet Butler a mandatory and highly valued staple for their yard maintenance needs."
"We've got some huge goals," Boswell says. "It's an industry that's untapped. We plan on becoming the Microsoft of dog poop."
4. Making $2 Million a year from a broken arm
http://www.showersleeve.com/
David Reynolds, a contractor by trade, had broken his arm while remodeling a bathroom in 1998. Keeping the cast dry proved to be very difficult, and when he tried looking around for a product to help, he was unable to find anything that was both effective and affordable. That's when the light bulb went on.After doing a patent search for such a product and finding nothing, Reynolds, an inventor since childhood, designed a plastic covering with an adjustable fastening mechanism on one end to keep arm and leg casts dry. He enlisted the help of his longtime friend and fellow contractor, Marty Ceccarelli, to build Mar-Von LLC and the brand.
Today, the products are sold via wholesalers and distributors and on their Web site
5. A $4 million dollar a year business from an ugly website.
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/
Joel Boblit parlayed nostalgia for his childhood toys into big-time business when he discovered how much Transformers - robot action figures whose popularity has continued since the 1980s - were being sold for online. He launched BigBadToyStore.com in 1999 shortly after graduating college, while he was reliving fond memories of trading his favorite childhood toys - GI Joe, Masters of the Universe and Transformers. The biggest challenge in those early days? Boblit admits: "Being teased by my friends."Joel made $4 million dollars in sales in 2005, so the strategy seems to be working.
Ercepts above are taken from http://www.nichegeek.com/
posted by sam @ 10:24 PM,
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The Author
Samuel Yau
How do you truly know someone? The truth is, you can't. Each person that you come across have a perspective of you that differs from another. So it's entirely up to you on how I am perceived to be
About This Blog
Initially this blog was birthed out of curiosity, on what it would be like to have a blog. To explore the world of entrepreneurship, business, marketing, etc and to jot down my learnings/experience here. As time passes on, the purpose change, the passion change, the person change.