10 Simple Product Ideas that Made their Creators Millionaires

We’ve all woken up in the middle of the night with an application
or product idea that we were sure would make us millionaires. The
difference between us and the people whose products made it into this
article is that we either a) forgot to write them down or b) didn’t
take the time to develop them into full businesses. These brilliant
(and sometimes incredibly stupid) products made millions.

Read about the 10 simple product ideas that made their creators into
millionaires!

Zumba

Aerobics and dance lessons aren’t anything new. There was a whole
aerobics craze in the 80s. There was Taibo, which mixed martial arts
with aerobic exercises. Neither of these reached the soaring heights
of popularity that Zumba was able to reach. Zumba is an exercise
program that combines Colombian dancing with aerobics. It was created
in the 90s by Alberto Pérez, and has since become an international
best-selling aerobic program that turned Alberto into a millionaire!

AirBNB and Uber

The idea of websites that allow people to rent out their homes isn’t
new. The idea of hailing cabs with the help of a phone isn’t new
either. But if you make those into an app and then invest a lot of
money into marketing… Well, then you can join the millionaire club
with your amazing new product! Both AirBNB and Uber have taken the
world by storm, and it’s now uncommon to be visiting a country
where you can’t hail an Uber from the airport to transport you to
your AirBNB flat.

Post-it

Can you imagine the days when you didn’t have post-it notes stuck
to your screen or refrigerator to remind you of the most important
things? Can you imaging using something like index cards or, God
forbid, a notebook to keep track of your ideas? Barbaric. The creator
of the Post-it notes quickly became a millionaire as these sticky
pads of paper became a staple both in and outside of business offices
and schools all around the world.

Crazy straw

Drinking water is boring. Drinking milk is boring. Generally, the
whole idea of drinking is kinda boring and tedious. But add a crazy
straw to your regimen and all of a sudden consuming any liquid
becomes the highlight of your day. The creator of the crazy straw
became a millionaire quite quickly as his little plastic inventions
became an integral part of every kid’s birthday party.

Spanx

As much as I don’t like people who profit off of making women feel
inferior about their bodies, I couldn’t skip Spanx. They were
created in the early 00s by Sara Blakely who found that regular
pantyhose caused her discomfort during a time when she had to do a
lot of walking door-to-door selling fax machines. So, she invented
Spanx. She invested $5,000 into her company, used her credit card to
trademark the word “Spanx”, and theт promptly became a
millionaire as her invention became extremely popular.

Top-down Bottle

Look, I lived through the days when ketchup bottles were made out of
glass and getting anything out of them was a whole adventure
in and of itself. Then, the top-down bottle was created with a
special valve to make sure that nothing spilled out. This was in
1991. By 1995 the inventor of this contraption was able to sell it
for $14 million!

Smiley Face

You would think that something as simple as a yellow smiley face has
been around for all of history. You’d be wrong. The smirking little
face was created by Harvey Ball, and you
had to pay $45 to use the image on your product. Once the huge
marketing potential was discovered, the creator of the image was able
to make $50 million from licensing the image to companies and
businesses.

Million-Dollar Home Page

This is, by far, the most brilliant simple idea on the list. A person
started a website. For $1 you could buy a single pixel on that
website. The website had one million pixels to sell. It became a
viral hit, and (wouldn’t you know it!) made the creator of the
Million-Dollar Homepage a millionaire.

iFart App

The stupidest on the list. The iFart App was one of the first apps
that went absolutely viral on the iOS App Store. The app makes any
phone into a mix of a Whoopee Cushion and a soundboard consisting
100% out of different fart noises. You could get the app for $0.99,
and boy did people buy it a lot! The guy is a millionaire now.

Pet Rock

Remember how Beanie Babies were a thing? At least those were toys. Gary Dahl, the inventor of Pet Rocks, has managed to make over $15 million in just six months with his idea of selling a rock to kids and calling it a pet. You could get a rock (in a nice box) for about $4. It comes on a little bed of hay. Every sale of a rock brought the inventor $3. He became a millionaire in no time!