Owner of the Norebo Holding company in Murmansk, his fortune is estimated at approximately a billion dollars. According to the agency, Orlov became rich thanks to instability in global trade and sanctions that Russia imposed in response to restrictive measures of the West. How else can you get rich without waiting for world upheavals? I remembered several interesting ways.

Stone pet

Brilliant ideas often come during relaxation - sleep or an evening over a glass of beer in a cozy bar. That's exactly what happened to 39-year-old copywriter Gary Dahl from Los Gatos, California. His friends discussed pets, complaining that caring for them required a lot of time and effort.

It was the 1970s: a time of bell-bottom jeans, disco parties, the Vietnam War, and a recession in the American economy. In this difficult time of rebels and hippies, Dal decided to entertain people and at the same time earn a little extra money. He gave the market New Product, which called Pet Rock - that is, stone a pet. In fact, Dal decided to sell ordinary stones from a Mexican beach.

The advertiser understood that any idea must be presented correctly. So he wrote a 30-page guide to caring for pet rocks, which he called the perfect pet. And in fact - they did not demand special care and attention, they did not need to be walked, fed or treated. The instructions told how to care for them and even train them. In particular, it was reported that pet stones can perform the commands “sit”, “down”, “die” and “face”. At the same time, using the latter, the owner of such a pet could protect himself from hooligans who were planning to take his cash. To do this, the instructions advised putting your hand in your pocket, taking out your pet and, commanding “Face”, hitting the thief on the head. In addition, the enterprising inventor “settled” his pet stones in cardboard houses with windows.

Investors were quickly found for this adventure. And already during the Christmas holidays of 1975, the trade in pet stones was in full swing. Buy one original gift could be had for $3.95. In a few months, Dal and his partners sold one and a half million of these toys, and a year later he had already become a dollar millionaire. However, two years later the idea became boring, and the business on the rocks collapsed. With the money, Dahl bought a small bar and returned to work as an advertising agent.

Brought it on myself

American Jason Sadler got rich from advertising that he wore on himself. In 2009, he created the website iwearyourshirt.com, the name of which translates as “I wear your shirt.” He suggested that companies wear these clothes to advertise anything, including their logos, slogans, etc.

The conditions for the sale of advertising “space” were curious. The cost of the service grew day by day: on the first day, Sadler was ready to wear such an advertising T-shirt for one dollar, on the second - for two dollars, on the third - for three, and so on, up to 365 dollars for wearing a T-shirt for a whole year - from January 1 to December 31.

The service turned out to be in demand: companies began to offer their T-shirts with advertising to the author of the idea. As a result, during the first year of such activity, he earned almost 80 thousand dollars. Wearing T-shirts with advertising turned out to be such a profitable business that he had to hire assistants for this business. Co next year he increased the starting price to two dollars, and a year later to five dollars. In mid-2010, all of Sadler's advertising space (including T-shirt assistants) was purchased six months in advance, and he began taking orders for 2011. On the last day of 2011, Sadler wore a T-shirt that advertised $1,825.

By 2013, Sadler’s income amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and his website became so popular that the entrepreneur began to earn money by advertising on the Internet resource.

Profitable to sell

In 1995, Rick Schwartz decided to register several domain names that had the potential to become popular. He placed advertisements on these resources, and this brought him some income. But selling domain names turned out to be a much more profitable venture. Since 1995, Schwartz has sold 20 domains, earning more than $500,000 for each. His biggest successes were Men.com ($1.3 million) and Candy.com, which was acquired in early 1997 for about $10,000 and sold for $3 million. Another domain, iReport.com, purchased for just $100, was resold by the enterprising Schwartz for $750,000.

Found it on the street

Circus performer Guy Laliberte earned his living by performing shows on the streets of Canada. He swallowed fire, played the accordion, and walked on stilts. One day he gathered his friends - street performers and, with a grant from local authorities, created Cirque du Soleil, which synthesized a variety of circus genres and styles and became one of the most successful and popular in the world. Cirque du Soleil performances have been attended by more than 90 million people from all over the world. The show generates $800 million in revenue annually. General state Laliberte is now worth more than $1.8 billion.

In 2009, Guy Laliberte went to the ISS, becoming the world's seventh space tourist.

Profitable students

David Cheriton, a 63-year-old Canadian billionaire, has amassed a fortune teaching computer science at Stanford University since 1981. His total fortune is $3.3 billion. He earned that kind of money quite well in an interesting way: The professor spent his entire life investing in the ideas and business plans of university students, helping them take off, and then selling his share of the shares for huge amounts of money. And although most of his investments were quite successful, one of them was especially successful: he invested $100 thousand in the idea of ​​Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they decided to found. This alone later brought the professor a billion dollars.

According to Paul Graham, investor and founder of Y Combinator, The best way getting a winning business idea is to not think about any. Instead, you should check what problems you can solve.

“The best startup ideas tend to exhibit three common features“They are something that founders themselves want, that they can build themselves, and that is worth doing in a way that others will understand,” Graham said in a November blog post.

"Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google and Facebook all started this way."

Now that the work year is in full swing, there are many dissatisfied employees racking their brains to come up with that one business concept that will make them rich.

Here are the stories of five great ideas that actually managed to turn into very successful companies:

Friends Adam Balon, John Wright and Richard Reed seemed well prepared after graduating from Cambridge University.

Two became management consultants. The third took up advertising. They all made good money and enjoyed a comfortable life in London.

But there was a general nagging feeling that there was something more to life. On a snowboarding vacation in 1998, the three did something other than throw around ideas for a new business.

They realized that there was a gap in the market for a new type of product—smoothies, one that was made from natural ingredients and openly based on ethical values.

After spending six months mixing different fruit combinations at home, the three set up a stall at a music festival to test the idea.

They left the decision of whether or not to continue entirely in the hands of consumers. The sign above the counter said, “Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies?” One basket said “yes” and the other “no”. Customers had to make their decision by throwing empty bottles into either of two trash bins.

Luckily, “yes” won. Balon, Wright and Reed began writing and rewriting their eleven times, which was rejected by a number of potential investors and banks.

Desperate letter e-mail with the title "Does anyone know anyone rich?" was sent to everyone the founders knew, which led them to Maurice Pinto, a wealthy American businessman who contributed £250,000.

Innocent Drinks reaches its first million working capital in its second year and the company now sells approximately two million smoothie packs a week, controlling 75% of the UK market share. In 2009, Coca-Cola took an 18% stake in the company for £30 million. A year later, the drinks giant paid £65 million for a 58% stake.

Reed said: “If you are 70% confident in an idea, then go for it. Because if you wait until you are 100% confident in the business... you will never be able to make a decision and you will never get anywhere.”

Australian entrepreneur Mark Harbottle made a rather strange decision in 1999 when he decided to partner with Matt Mickiewicz, a Canadian who was ten years younger. But this decision paid off in spades.

“I was 26 and he was 16, (but) age was not taken into account,” Harbottle said. - “I saw that he was smart child who knew what he was doing. He made several thousand dollars a week through his website. Matt put up several thousand dollars to finance this project, and I put up $400.”

The web developer's business, Sitepoint, was hit by a severe advertising recession during the dot-com bust. Harbottle and Mickiewicz came up with the idea of ​​providing high-quality content to web developers in printed form.

“Our clients were printing information offline, so we were thinking about doing something in that space,” Harbottle said. “The idea was born from this. You could call it crowdsourcing, in some respects. And the idea was focused on determining what customers want and it was necessary to respond accordingly.”

“We printed the book on order, and it became a real success. We now have about sixty books.”

SitePoint may have changed its business model to become a traditional publisher, but it was its continued online growth that was to give rise to the launch of 99Designs.

A large community of developers and designers gathered online in the SitePoint forum, where they regularly played what Harbottle calls "Photoshop tennis" to work on logos for fictional projects, have a little friendly competition and hone their skills.

The dynamic changed when a small business owner asked the community to create branding for him.

Mickiewicz recalls, “It was a revolutionary way to outsource graphic design work and literally thousands of times better than the best alternative.”

“After a while, when it became clear that this organizing model had sustainability, we began charging $10 per “competition watcher” to post a request for design work on our forums, and we quickly began generating thousands of dollars in revenue.” .

The site allows firms to submit design work online for freelance designers competing to create The best decision and demand a commission.

Five years after launch, over $45 million has been paid out to the 99designs community. The company has 70 employees in Australia, the US, Germany, France and London and earned $35 million in 2011.

Where to get money to start own business? This is exactly the problem that 95% of new entrepreneurs face! In the article we revealed the most current methods receiving starting capital for an entrepreneur. We also recommend that you carefully study the results of our experiment in exchange earnings:

American entrepreneur James McCann had a fairly ordinary career as a bartender and then a social worker.

In fairness, it is worth noting the fact that this short biography doesn't indicate. A little later, he shook up the entire retail model and became one of the first online pioneers.

McCann opened his first flower shop, which was called Flora Plenty, in 1976. But it wasn't until he bought the easy-to-remember phone number 1-800-FLOWERS in 1986 and, radically for the time, changed the name of the business to match that his business really took off.

According to his autobiography, McCann decided he would build a nationwide flower delivery service while listening to the radio while he shaved.

The company was the first to use a toll-free phone number in its name, and was one of the first retailers in the world to have an online presence after reaching an agreement with CompuServe and AOL in 1992.

Many of the steps McCann took in the early 1990s have now become standard for retail worldwide. Many new businesses are considering adding their name to their phone number, while more and more businesses are realizing that a website is an integral part of sales.

In 1999, the company's name went public and it added .com to its name. Revenue reached $668 million in 2010.

Joe Jebbia and Brian Chesky rented a loft apartment together in San Francisco in 2007 when they realized that attendees at their city's premier design conference would have a hard time finding a room for the night.

With almost everyone booked hotel rooms in the city, Jebbia and Chesky, who were struggling to pay their rent, took their chance.

They opened the doors to their apartment, offering strangers the chance to sleep on the floor on two air mattresses and eat a home-cooked breakfast.

As Airbnb's website puts it: "Two air mattresses, a thousand dollars, three new friends, and many gestures of encouragement afterwards helped entrepreneurs realize an opportunity."

With the addition of tech pro Nathan Blecharczyk, the team decided to change the hosting model by allowing people to add their own places to stay online. So it began new business- Airbedandbreakfast.com, which received income by paying from 6 to 12%, depending on the booking price.

Initially targeting large scale events where housing would be scarce, the trio generated cash for the venture in an unusual way– they sold a $30,000 special edition cereal they created based on then-presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

In 2008, the name was shortened to Airbnb, and users could book entire estates, boats, and even private islands, not just a daybed, to spend the night.

Last June, the company revealed it had already booked its ten millionth night, with 75% of those bookings coming from outside its initial US market.

There have also been mishaps, such as the PR disaster when a woman wrote on her blog that her apartment had been trashed by an Airbnb renter. Chesky wrote a contrite response, admitting the company had made a blunder and introducing insurance as well as a 24-hour hotline to help resolve future problems.

Airbnb now has listings in 33,000 cities in 192 countries. The company also raised $120 million in venture capital and was valued at $1.3 billion.

Chesky told CNN: "Sometimes it takes a new pair of eyes to see a problem and see it as an opportunity, not just as a pattern of how things actually are or should look."

“I think being a young entrepreneur is a great opportunity to challenge the status quo and build the world the way you think it should be.”

Honey seller Bert Schavitz met unemployed waitress Roxanne Quimby in 1984, and they decided to make some money by making wax candles.

By the end of the first year, sales reached $20,000. Impressive, but not enough to support a decent sized business.

The breakthrough came when the two started cooking natural soap and perfumes on household gas stoves, while the accompanying lip balm became a bestseller.

In 1991, when the company was registered as legal entity, it produced half a million candles a year, as well as natural soaps and perfumes. She also had 40 employees as orders began pouring in from all over the United States.

Quimby told Inc., “In the early years, I had a sort of 'midnight of your soul' feeling at times. One day, I came home from the fair and found that the window in my salon was closed. There was snow everywhere."

“It was below 20 degrees and three o’clock in the morning. I didn’t make any money and the car had a hard time getting here.”

“I really believe that success is getting up one more time than you fell down. It doesn't come from one brilliant idea, but from a series of small decisions that accumulate over the years."

"And you shouldn't underestimate the amount of work that's involved, the amount of fear that entails."

“I'm not sentimental about products - they either work or they don't. We tried a lot of different things. One of them was lip balm from beeswax. It became clear very early on that people were buying lip balm ten times faster than they were buying wax furniture polish. Next came the moisturizer. It also sold better than polish.”

In 2009, Burt's Bees celebrated its 25th anniversary, with revenue reaching $250 million.

There are several, or to be precise, two options for developing a small business. In the first option, we follow the traditional path, which involves finding an idea, thinking it over, planning, and evaluating competitors. Then everything is like everyone else, formation, development, competition and finding your share and only after a year, or even more, receiving your first profit. It takes a long time and requires a lot of patience and of course money. True, there is an alternative: the use of non-trivial business ideas that literally “explode” the market or literally create new markets. Of course, the second option is much more interesting from the point of view of a beginner, but it is necessary to remember about the increased risks, however, we will talk about this separately. Today, the topic of the article is precisely these same “explosive” and at the same time simple business ideas for small entrepreneurs.

Stone, brain and many millions, a good business idea for creative people.

I think I won’t be exaggerating too much if I call Gary Dalom a kind of “king” of simple and, most importantly, high profitable ideas for small businesses. What did this American do?

Everything is so simple and original that it takes your breath away.

The essence of the business idea is simple - to sell ordinary pebbles (stones) from the beach in the form of pets. At first glance, it’s hard to come up with a crazier business idea, but at the same time it worked and actually brought millions of dollars to the creator. What's the trick?

• — first, a product promotion strategy was thought out, including a huge 30-page tome of instructions on keeping a pet stone pet.
• - second, a large advertising company. Actually, the investment of money was exclusively in advertising, the stone ones themselves - the pets gathered on the beaches and after the banal gluing of eyes they became a commodity, the cost price, if not zero, was very close.

In general, such a simple business idea lived for about two years, during which time Gary himself and his investors earned several million dollars in net profit. Agree, it's pretty good. The best thing about the idea is that it can be implemented in the vastness of Russia, of course, it is not necessary to use stones, the main direction is to show a little creativity.

A simple version of a business idea based on advertising

Jason Sadler proved the opposite, so what brought millions of dollars to the enterprising American?

It's quite simple, Jason offered local businesses to place their advertisements on his T-shirt, for a rent of course. The idea turned out to be in demand and within a year we had to increase the staff of “carriers” of advertising T-shirts. Within three years, the business had expanded to such a size that Sadler's annual income amounted to millions of dollars.

Frankly speaking, such a trick is possible in literally any medium-sized town, where there are definitely companies willing to pay for active advertising, even in such an unusual format, and this is the simplest business from scratch.

Business angel, or how to increase money and earn money for retirement

Business angels are a rather specific field of activity that requires many skills and knowledge, at the same time, David Cheriton shows the whole world that “the devil is not always as terrible as he is portrayed.” Actually, the enterprising American was quite actively involved in investing in young and, in his opinion, promising students; it is worth saying that he himself is a professor. Ultimately, one of his investments turned out to be the great and “terrible” Google itself. As a result, one of the investments worth one hundred thousand dollars brought in billions.

Of course, it will be quite difficult to repeat Cheriton's success. However, you can make good money on good and simple business ideas in the realities of Russia. Just look around and find interesting, promising ideas from young entrepreneurs.

Is cybersquat a confusing word or a great business idea?

Today, cybersquatting is not as new and promising as it was 10 years ago, however, the level of its development in Russia is an order of magnitude lower than in the West, which makes it possible not only to create a business, but also to make good money. To make it clear, a cybersquatter is a person who buys domain names for the purpose of reselling them at an inflated price; roughly speaking, he is a kind of Internet speculator.

The most promising market for Russian cybersquatters today is the outback, where businesses are just starting to think about creating their own resources, and as a result, the demand for corresponding domain names is growing, so here’s the idea simple business from scratch.

Sell ​​your talent or how you can make millions from transitioning artists.

At the end of our review today of the simplest and successful business ideas for a million lucky circus performer. What did he do to earn his first million?

In fact, there is nothing original in the idea; Guy Laliberte simply combined artists of different genres in one performance. Moreover, in the initial interpretation, these were street performers, accustomed to working in the most difficult conditions and, most importantly, able to integrate into the craziest circus hodgepodge.

No matter how skeptical critics were about the appearance of such a performance, the show is not only popular, but is successfully growing and developing. At the same time, the organizer was also pleased, after all, a million dollars is a million.

This concludes today's issue, but there is still a lot of useful and interesting information don't forget to subscribe to the blog about business ideas.

Ecology of knowledge. Business: If we are tired of a job we don’t like, we increasingly think about starting our own business. But is it possible to start a business with minimal investment so that making money is a joy? Many examples show that this is real.

If we are tired of a job we don’t like, we increasingly think about starting our own business. But is it possible to start a business with minimal investment so that earning money is a joy? Many examples show that this is real.

1. Born to crawl, cannot fly. But Rick Platt thinks differently. He created special areas with elastic trampolines where a person can fly. Although this seemed like a crazy idea at first glance, nevertheless, now it brings millions to its creator.

2. Driving school. But not ordinary, but driving sports cars! It would seem, well, what’s unusual here? And this idea brought the creator almost $2 million.

3. One car shop. One enterprising American decided to open a store selling spare parts. The catch was that he only had spare parts and upgrades for one make of car and for a specific model. Not profitable? Over the course of a year, this store brought its owner $2 million.

4. A couple of friends decided to study science and art at the same time. How? They made portraits from DNA! Each amino acid was assigned its own color and its place in the picture. This venture brought the friends almost 1.5 million US dollars.

5. Every man has encountered in his life the problem of unraveling his socks. That is, you start counting them, but it turns out there are an odd number of them and the colors don’t match! But the enterprising Samuel Lichti used this problem as the basis for his business idea: he opened a company selling 9 socks. This venture brought him $5 million.

6. Parents often sew tags on their children’s clothes in kindergarten so that they do not confuse them with someone else’s. But Julia Cole went further - she decided to provide such a service not only to children, but also to adults. Her company sells special sticker tags. Having invested only 10 thousand dollars, she received 4 million dollars.

7. Protecting golf courses from geese! Dave Marks started doing this back in 1987 and continues to do so to this day. And thanks to its uniqueness, his business is thriving.

8. Steve Richardson came up with original puzzles - he cuts them out of wood, having previously ordered an artist to draw on them. The price of such a puzzle can reach up to 5 thousand dollars! By the way, even Queen Elizabeth ordered such a gift for herself.

9. But even among our people there are plenty of ideas for business. For example, the lead singer of the group “Tea for Two” Denis Klyaver opened a tailoring shop for animals. More precisely for decorative dogs.

10. A hotel that only rents rooms to divorced women. They not only provide assistance with housing, but also offer to celebrate the beginning of a new life with a bottle of champagne and a session at the SPA salon.

So, if you have another crazy idea for a business, don’t rush to dismiss it - perhaps this is your future. And if there is no idea, look for other opportunities. published

Surely more than once you have had to think about where to get a certain amount of money and how today's rich people earned their first million. Or maybe you read the famous copywriter’s book “Million Dollar Ideas from Bruce Barton” and were inspired by his success and advice? Naturally, everyone achieves their financial victories differently, but their source is always an idea.

Sometimes an idea is so simple that one can hardly believe in its success, however, such ideas surprisingly bear fruit and the money tree grows every day.
This topic will talk about fairly simple and creative ideas which have brought and can bring in millions of dollars.

Quite a lot of people have the skills to teach others. The idea of ​​hosting a paid online course can be financially lucrative and bring in good earnings.

Creation of paid courses on website creation

In order for your plan to be crowned with success, you should post your works on specialized websites and forums. Make sure that the potential student sees and believes in the course. Next, you can organize an online school.

But the main rule should be remembered: the teacher must have perfect knowledge of the topic that he proposes. The flow of clients and future reviews will depend on his professionalism.

Sample certificate of completion of paid online course

If we talk about popular online courses, we can cite the IT industry as an example, for example, software development, applications for certain platforms, training in programming or stock trading on the stock market. All these areas are quite popular today.

There are never too many pixels

We should talk about the British student Alex Tube, who decided to create a website from a million free pixels.


He wanted to sell each pixel for one dollar, but due to the very small size decided to combine them into ten by ten blocks, so the cost of one block was $100. The first block was sold to a friend.

This is what the main page of a website selling pixels looks like

After spending just over $70 to register a domain name, the smart guy was able to make $1 million from his idea in just over a year.

Book publication

Until recently, in order to publish your book you had to overcome many problems and financial investments. Fortunately, today it is not so expensive to publish your creation. If the literary material is useful or interesting, then the book will quickly spread among millions of readers. There are many services on the Internet where you can put your creation up for sale. This earning solution can be included in the list of $1 million ideas.

Business idea for creating an e-book

An example is an American girl named Amanda Hawking. She sells her books on Amazon with great success. This example is just one of thousands. The e-book business is quite large and has a wide range of potential clients.


Even if we take the example of the famous copywriter and writer Bruce Barton, in addition to the fact that one unique line of his could cost a colossal amount of money, he also wrote books, one of them “Million Dollar Tips from Bruce Barton” sold out in huge quantities.
I would also like to advise that in case of failure or low sales, you should not give up, you need to work day after day and improve your writing skills.

Writer Amanda Hawking

Picky Domains website

To simplify this procedure, an agency was created that can come up with a beautiful and memorable domain for $50, and can also come up with a slogan for $75. This idea seemed absurd and it was easier for a person to come up with everything himself and not pay money for it. However, buyers did not have to wait long, and soon the agency was bombarded with orders.
It is worth considering that today almost all valuable domains are taken or are very expensive. In this regard, many conclude that this business has outlived its usefulness.


But everyone needs beautiful and memorable names, since the Internet industry does not stand still. For those who have decided to make money on domains, it is advised to take a closer look at the new domain zones, the second, third and fourth levels, where sonorous names cost pennies, but what will their price be in the near future? They can easily add several hundred times to the cost.

Million Dollar Playing Cards

It would seem that what’s wrong with playing cards. And is it really possible to earn a lot from them? Fitness trainer Phill Black has proven it's possible.


He made a deck in which each card depicted one physical exercise and started selling this product. Along with the cards, he sold a disk in which he clearly and clearly explained how to perform this or that exercise. The price of such a product is $19, and the profit that Phill received was $4.7 million.

Serving in a monastery does not interfere with business

This idea may seem very strange and unusual. There is a company called “Lizer Max” that refills cartridges for copying machines.

Cartridge refill business

The question immediately arises, why is this idea so brilliant? The point is that the work is done by monks. A picture immediately pops up in your imagination of how monks refill cartridges while listening to their prayers. Surprisingly, since the start of the business, they have already managed to earn 2.5 million. This idea is truly brilliant, since a person would be better off working with cartridges filled with prayers, and would pay the money to the monastery.

Business idea for creating a dating site for people living with HIV

HIV-infected people on this site can feel like full-fledged people, and every day the site is replenished with new users. A noble idea, isn't it? You can also open a marriage agency for patients with this disease. Everyone wants to have a full-fledged family and relationships. Of course, this is not a simple matter and requires diligence, attention and special control.

Sunglasses for pets

This idea is on the list of the eleven stupidest ideas that were never meant to work.
Nevertheless, the idea brought its inspiration more than one million dollars. The woman who created sunglasses for dogs is an ordinary American named Ronnie Dilula.


She developed a project and created an organization under the Duggles brand, which produces glasses for pets based on the shape of their heads. The company operates in sixteen countries around the world, has more than four thousand stores, and in addition to all this, the company has entered into an agreement with the American army and supplies their special military dogs with glasses.

Hoops

The invention of the hoop brought millions of dollars to its creators. This happened in 1958. Due to its phenomenal success, 20,000 thousand copies were produced per day.

Business idea for creating a hoop that is used all over the world

Unfortunately, it was not possible to patent the original hoop, and copycat products appeared on the market. But even despite this, such a simple invention brought in a lot of money. Just think about it, people reinvented the wheel in the twentieth century and made millions doing it.
Today, this idea also remains relevant, but requires some zest in terms of design or functionality.