5 weird business ideas that made millions

A good business idea is half the battle. However, what if the concept itself is absurd and bizarre? Well, today, we are using many products and services that seemed completely ridiculous just a few years ago. Here are some of the wildest startup ideas that left originators with millions of dollars. Read on.

Startup ideas- table of contents:

Ridiculous startup ideas that were successful
Facebook
Snapchat
Airbnb
PayPal
Google
Summary

Weird business ideas that made millions

We have gathered a list of the most ridiculous business ideas that turned out to be profitable. Mostly, they were not given any chance to achieve business success, but today, they are powerful brands whose services we use on a daily basis.

Facebook

Obviously, Facebook should be first on our list. The idea was so absurd that it was hard to explain it to investors. Most people thought that the concept was simply a joke. What could be interesting about a platform where students could only waste their precious time?

Initially, the service was aimed at a smaller audience, and it was supposed to be free. What is more, there had been several other social networks before Facebook, and they all failed. How could it make money, then? Well, nowadays, the site earns over 12 billion dollars a year and has countless users.

Snapchat

Evan Spiegel presented his idea for Snapchat during a lecture at the prestigious University of Stanford. The concept seemed so absurd to everyone that it only provided lots of belly laughs. Could the idea of sharing photos that disappear after a few seconds be appealing? People thought it was a terrible project that could only be used for sexting. As it turned out, Snapchat brought together 322 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2022.

Airbnb

Currently, Airbnb is a giant that generates over 5 billion dollars in revenue and offers as many apartments for rent around the world as all the hotel chains put together. At first, however, the idea of hosting strangers and offering them breakfast appeared strange and unusual.

After all, letting a stranger in didn’t seem safe. Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky talked about their idea a lot, but everyone thought that they were out of their minds. Finally, one investor, Paul Graham, gave them a chance. He believed Airbnb was a bad business idea, but he liked its originators.

PayPal

This world-famous global payments platform was founded by Max Levchellon, Peter Thelloel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery in 1998. At first, it was called Confinity. At the time, sending money over the Internet didn’t seem safe to anyone.

However, the absurdity of the idea was that people were to use their private email addresses, which were not secured in any way, to make payments.The intermediary processing transactions was to be a company that was not even a bank. Most investors were sure the concept would not get off the ground. Today, PayPal is widely known and earns over 4 billion dollars annually.

Google

It’s hard to believe, but when Google was starting out in the market, everyone thought it was a completely absurd idea. One of its founders, Larry Page, even tried to sell Google for 750,000 dollars to Excite, but all he heard in response was laughter. Why? Google appeared on the market quite late.

At that time, there were already about 20 search engines, and almost none of them were commercially successful. Such ventures were considered to be failures then. Today, Google is the most visited website in the world (with over 90 billion hits yearly) that owns 91% of the search engine market share and generates profits of about 80 billion dollars a year.

Business ideas – summary

Obviously, we have presented only a few of the many absurd startup ideas that really hit the spot. As it turns out, the craziest ones can create the best results. Young businesses often grow in unexpected ways. Take inspiration from the above concepts and give your company a try.

You’ve just read about the wildest startup ideas that made crazy money. Other articles you may like: Generation gap in the workplace.

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Author: Andy Nichols
A problem solver with 5 different degrees and endless reserves of motivation. This makes him a perfect Business Owner & Manager. When searching for employees and partners, openness and curiosity of the world are qualities he values the most.
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