Wacky Wall Walker
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind It: Ken Hakuta
Estimated Profit: $80MM
Icanhascheezburger.com
Ridiculously Wealthy People Behind It: Eric Nakagawa (aka Cheezburger) and Kari Unebasami (aka Tofu burger)
Estimated Profit: $2MM
The site now receives more than 35MM hits per month and 8,000 daily submissions. In 2007, Tofu burger and Cheezburger sold the site for $2MM to now CEO, Ben Huh. Ben has created six sister sites, landed a book deal that was a New York Times Best Seller, and the company makes an estimated half a million from book sales alone.
Slinky
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind It: Richard James
Estimated Profit: $250MM
Naval engineer Richard James' flash of brilliance was spawned by clumsiness. He dropped a tension spring he was working with and watched it slink away across the floor. And thus the Slinky was born.
2. P90X
Annual revenue: $400 million
3. TOTAL GYM
Total sales: $1 billion
9. SWEATIN’ TO THE OLDIES
Total sales: approximately $200 Million
Pet Rock
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind It: Gary Dahl
Estimated Profit: $15M in just the first six months
Yellow Smiley Faces
Ridiculously Rich People Behind It: Bernard and Murray Spain
Estimated Profit: $500MM
1. PROACTIV
Annual revenue: $1 Billion
5. BOWFLEX
Annual revenue: $193.9 Million
6. SHOWTIME ROTISSERIE
Total sales: $1.2 Billion
4. GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL
Annual revenue: $202 Million
10. THIGHMASTER
Total sales: $100 Million
Beanie Babies
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind It: H Ty Warner
Estimated Profit:
$3-6 Billion
Snuggie
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind It: Scott Boilen, President of Allstar Products
Estimated Profit: $200MM
It's as simple as putting on a bathrobe backwards and an idea so ridiculous it isn't patentable. But the Snuggie, which sold 20 million items in its first year, is no laughing matter. How did the silly two for $19.95 blanket with sleeves shove aside its Slanket and Freedom Blanket predecessors? Some think the "cult of Snuggie" came to be through an abundance of advertising. $10 million worth of infomercials in a down economy will do the trick.
But humor is the selling strategy that made the Snuggie a star. Bottom line: if a product is ridiculous, it should be sold in the funniest way possible. The ads, which featured a Snuggie-clad family roasting marshmallows together and cheering at sports games, quickly became media sensations. Jay Leno, Whoopie Goldberg and Ellen DeGeneres all featured the product on their shows. The buzz has led to Snuggie pub crawls, YouTube Snuggie mockery clips and a lot of gag gifts. I received a text from a friend just before Christmas, "Tell me what you want, otherwise you're getting a leopard print Snuggie."
And of course there's its cutesy name that makes it sound more like a stuffed animal than quasi-apparel. Whatever the magic marketing recipe is, creator Scott Boilen is rolling in a few hundred million. By our math, it's about $200MM to be exact (20,000,000 Snuggies sold x $19.95/2 items = a Truckload).
Million-Dollar Home Page
Ridiculously Rich Person Behind The Idea: Alex Tew
Estimated Profit: $1MM
This story has been beat to a pulp, but it's so ridiculous it's worth noting. A 21-year-old British kid created a home page and sold 1MM pixels each for $1. Furthermore, he had a sob story to warm the public's heart: trying to pay his way through undergrad. Advertisers ate up the charity case boy who shamelessly proclaims on his site: "I am a pixel hustler and proud!" The site sold-out its pixels in a little over one year.
Fill a sack with beans, give it furry ears, and name it something cute like Patti the Platypus or Splash the Whale. The result? A toy empire bigger than Hasbro and Mattel combined—Beanie Babies. While many initially scoffed at Ty's under-stuffed animals and referred to them as 'roadkill,' the haters were quickly hushed when 30,000 were sold at the first toy show in Atlanta.
I can't wait to see what The SolarBreeze's Numbers will turn out to be