The Worst Business Ideas
That Actually Worked
Pet Rocks. Snuggies. A $999 app that does literally nothing. These businesses sounded absolutely insane on paper — and then made millions. Some made billions. Here are 18 of the greatest dumb ideas in business history, ranked and roasted.
The Pattern Nobody Talks About
There's this thing that happens in every investor pitch meeting. Someone describes their idea and someone else says “that'll never work.” And 90% of the time, they're right. But the other 10% of the time, the dumb idea turns into a billion-dollar company and the skeptic spends the rest of their career wondering where it all went wrong.
Every single idea on this list was laughed at. Pet Rock? Ridiculous. Airbnb? Dangerous. Crocs? Hideous. And yet here we are. Crocs made more money last year than most “serious” businesses will make in a lifetime.
I'm writing this from the perspective of a guy who put his entire net worth in Fannie Mae preferred stock, so I'm not exactly in a position to judge anyone's investment thesis. But at least I can appreciate the beauty of a business plan that makes absolutely no sense on paper and prints money anyway.
The List
18 businesses that should not have worked. Ranked by absurdity.
Pet Rock (1975)
$15M in 6 months
Gary Dahl sold rocks in boxes for $4. Smooth, palm-sized rocks that came with a "care and training manual." He sold over a million of them. The man sold ROCKS. In boxes. With breathing holes. That's either the dumbest thing ever or the single greatest marketing flex in human history. I genuinely cannot decide.
Snuggie
$500M+ in sales
It's a backwards robe. That's it. It's a blanket with sleeves. Someone looked at a bathrobe, put it on backwards, and said "this is worth half a billion dollars." And they were RIGHT. The infomercials were so bad they became iconic. My mom owned three.
Crocs
$3.9B revenue (2023)
The ugliest shoes ever manufactured by human hands. They look like what happens when you microwave a clog. They have HOLES in them. On purpose. And yet — $3.9 billion in revenue last year. I own two pairs. I'm part of the problem.
Cards Against Humanity
$30M+/year
A card game about being a terrible person. Started as a free PDF you could print at home. They've sold over 550 million cards. They once dug a hole in the ground for no reason and people paid them $100K to watch. They sold literal bull crap on Black Friday. The company is the product.
Chia Pet
500K+ units every Christmas since 1982
Ch-ch-ch-chia. You spread seeds on a terracotta animal and watch grass grow out of it. That's the whole value proposition. It's been selling every single holiday season for over 40 years. Your grandma probably bought you one. The Chia Pet has outlasted most Fortune 500 companies.
The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)
Exactly $1,000,000
Alex Tew was a 21-year-old student who needed tuition money. He made a webpage with a million pixels and sold each one for $1. That's it. That's the business plan. He made exactly one million dollars. It took about five months. The last 1,000 pixels sold on eBay for $38,100. The kid's a genius and I'm still mad about it.
Ship Your Enemies Glitter
Sold for $85,000
For $9.99, this company would mail an envelope of glitter to someone you hated. The glitter would explode everywhere when opened. Impossible to clean up. The founder built it as a joke, went viral on Reddit, got overwhelmed with orders, publicly begged people to stop buying it, and then sold the company for $85K. The shipping was the product.
I Am Rich (2008)
$7,999.92 (8 sales at $999.99)
An iOS app that cost $999.99 and did absolutely nothing. It showed a glowing red gem on your screen. That's it. No features. No utility. Just a red gem that proved you had $999.99 to waste. Eight people bought it before Apple pulled it from the store. Eight. People.
Doritos Locos Taco
$1B in first year
Someone at Taco Bell looked at a Dorito and said "what if the taco shell WAS the chip" and a billion-dollar product was born. They just... put Doritos dust on a taco shell. That's the innovation. One billion dollars in twelve months. The R&D budget was probably $40 and a trip to 7-Eleven.
BarkBox
$500M+ company
A monthly subscription box of dog treats and toys. Dogs don't care about unboxing experiences. Dogs don't know what a subscription is. Dogs would be equally happy with a stick from the yard. And yet — half-billion-dollar company. Because the box isn't for the dog. It's for the human who wants to feel like a good dog parent. Marketing, baby.
Dollar Shave Club
Sold to Unilever for $1B
"Our Blades Are F***ing Great." That one YouTube video launched a billion-dollar company. The razors were fine. Not great, not terrible. Just fine. But the video was incredible, the brand was hilarious, and Unilever paid a billion dollars for what was essentially a funny guy with a camera and some mediocre razor blades. Branding wins.
Bumble
$3B+ valuation
Tinder but women message first. That's the pitch. Whitney Wolfe Herd took the exact same concept as Tinder — which she helped create — changed one rule, and built a company worth more than three billion dollars. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most valuable. Sometimes you just need to flip one switch.
Liquid Death
$700M+ valuation
It's water. In a tallboy can. With heavy metal branding. The CEO literally said "we just put water in a can and gave it an aggressive name." They sponsor punk bands. They have a loyalty program called the "Murder Head Death Club." It's WATER. Seven hundred million dollars. For water in a can.
Spanx
Billionaire founder
Sara Blakely cut the feet off her pantyhose because she wanted smoother lines under white pants. That's it. She cut the feet off pantyhose. She's now a billionaire. She had no fashion background. No business degree. Just scissors and a pair of pantyhose. Sometimes that's all you need.
Airbnb
$75B+ company
"Let strangers sleep in your house." Try pitching that to your parents. "Hey Mom, I'm going to let random people from the internet sleep in my apartment while I'm gone." Every investor who passed on this is somewhere rethinking their entire career. The founders literally sold cereal boxes shaped like Obama and McCain to fund the early days. Cereal. Boxes.
Rent-A-Chicken
Profitable since 2013
You rent chickens. For your backyard. They come with a coop, feed, and instructions. When you're done playing farmer, you give them back. It's chicken-as-a-service. This exists in multiple US cities. Somebody is out there right now returning a rented chicken and that's the funniest sentence I've ever written.
Potato Parcel
$2M+ revenue
You pay someone to write a message on a potato and mail it to somebody. A real potato. With Sharpie on it. They were on Shark Tank. They got a deal. We live in a simulation.
Yellow Pages (the original)
Multi-billion dollar industry for decades
"What if we printed every business's phone number in a giant book and threw it on everyone's porch whether they wanted it or not?" For decades, this was one of the most profitable business models in America. The entire internet search industry exists because the Yellow Pages idea was so good that everyone wanted a digital version.
Glen's Take
Every investor who passed on these is somewhere rethinking their entire framework. “We don't invest in backward robes.” Cool, you missed a $500M exit. “Nobody will let strangers sleep in their house.” Right, Airbnb's only worth $75 billion.
Meanwhile I put my net worth in GSE preferred stock, which sounds exactly as insane as Pet Rock but hasn't paid off yet. At least Gary Dahl's rocks shipped on time. My preferred shares have been in conservatorship since 2008. The rocks had a faster exit.
The real lesson here isn't “dumb ideas work.” It's that the line between “dumb” and “genius” is a lot thinner than MBA programs want you to believe. Sara Blakely didn't have a business degree. She had scissors. And now she's a billionaire.
Maybe the real dumb idea is spending four years getting a business degree when you could just sell rocks in a box.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a bad business idea actually succeed?
Usually one of three things: perfect timing, incredible marketing, or solving a problem nobody realized existed. Pet Rock had timing — it was a gag gift during the holiday season of 1975. Dollar Shave Club had marketing — one perfect video. Spanx solved a problem — smoother lines under clothes. The "bad" part is usually just that it sounds dumb when you describe it in one sentence.
Could any of these work today?
The specific ideas? Probably not — they already exist. But the PATTERN absolutely works today. Find something simple, make it entertaining or convenient, and market it brilliantly. Liquid Death is literally just water in a can and they're worth $700M as of 2024. The next Pet Rock is out there right now. Someone's probably working on it in their garage.
What's the lesson for entrepreneurs?
Stop overthinking it. Half these founders had no business plan, no MBA, and no investors when they started. Sara Blakely had scissors and pantyhose. Alex Tew had a webpage and an idea. The Dollar Shave Club guy had a camera and some jokes. Execution and marketing beat a perfect business plan every single time. Also — sometimes the market is just weird and you can sell rocks in boxes for $4.
Has Glen ever had a bad business idea?
I put my entire net worth in GSE preferred stock, which sounds exactly as insane as Pet Rock but hasn't paid off yet. At least Gary Dahl's rocks shipped on time. I also run a website with 960+ pages built by an AI agent, so you tell me — is this genius or am I the next entry on this list?
What's the dumbest idea on this list?
I Am Rich. No contest. A $999.99 app that shows a glowing red gem and does literally nothing else. And eight people bought it. EIGHT. That means eight humans looked at a thousand-dollar app that does nothing and said 'yeah, I need that.' Those eight people are either the dumbest or most confident humans alive and I genuinely can't tell which.
Books About Unlikely Success
Affiliate links — they help keep this ridiculous site running.
The Mom Test
How to validate business ideas without fooling yourself. Gary Dahl could've used this.
Find on AmazonShoe Dog — Phil Knight
Nike started by selling Japanese shoes from the trunk of a car. Sound familiar?
Find on AmazonZero to One — Peter Thiel
Build something new, not another copycat. The Pet Rock guy understood this instinctively.
Find on AmazonKnow someone who needs to hear that selling rocks in a box is a valid career path? Share it.
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