20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of • Hacker News Board

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#11

Post by DevX101 » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

1. Rent-A-Green Box Entrepreneur: Spencer Brown * Product/Service: Environmentally friendly moving supplies, delivery and pickup Start Date: 2005 Startup Costs: $7 million Revenue: $2.6 million in 2009

2. Mabel's Labels Entrepreneur: Julie Cole Product/Service: Personalized, permanent labels for kids' stuff Start Date: 2002 Startup Costs: About $10,000 Revenue: $4 million in 2009

3. Fatheadz Entrepreneur: Rico Elmore Product/Service: Sunglasses for large people Start Date: 2004 Start-up Costs: About $500,000 Revenue: Estimated $2 million in 2010

4. Stave Puzzles Entrepreneur: Steve Richardson Product/Service: Hand-made wooden jigsaw puzzles. Start Date: 1974 Startup Costs: About $5,000 Revenue: $2.5 million in 2009 Ranging in price from $125 to $5,000, these puzzles are made of cherry wood, covered with a dry-mounted image drawn by one of 100 licensed artists, and individually hand-cut into as many as 2,500 pieces. Bill Gates has one, and Barbara Bush gave another as a gift to Queen Elizabeth. "We try to make them hard to put together," said 71-year-old Richardson, who calls himself the company's chief tormentor.

5. Texas Driving Experience Entrepreneur: Dawn Stokes Product/Service: High-performance driving lessons and retreats Start Date: 2004 Startup Costs: About $500,000 Revenue: Estimated $1.8 million in 2010

6. Litecubes Entrepreneur: Carl VanderSchuit Product/Service: Fake ice cubes that glow Start Date: 2001 Startup Costs: About $100,000 Revenue: $1.3 million in 2009

7. Smarter Fuel Entrepreneur: Dave Dunham Product/Service: Biodiesel fuel from restaurant frying oil Start Date: 2004 Startup Costs: $50,000 Revenue: $3 million in 2009

8. Sky Zone Entrepreneur: Rick Platt Product/Service: Arenas covered with trampolines Start Date: 2009 Startup Costs: About $2 million Revenue: $3 million-plus in 2009

9. Sanidoor Entrepreneur: Gale Lemrand. Product/Service: Sanitary, touchless restroom-door openers Start Date: 2009. Startup Costs: About $3.5 million Revenue: Estimated $2.2 million in 2010

10. Geese Police Entrepreneur: Dave Marcks Product/Service: Geese abatement using collies Start Date: 1987 Startup Costs: About $3,000 Revenue: Estimated $2.5 million in 2010

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#12

Post by imr » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

Last one is impressive. At $7000 a day the guy only has to work 143 days to reach a million per year.

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#13

Post by dansingerman » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:02 PM UTC

transition wrote: post #7

iisbum wrote: post #3

Nice list, hated they way they were shown.

They just got 20 times the amount of page views though. If they provided a list that means you could have skipped through and decreased their page views.

Really? I stopped at the second one and decided to read this thread instead (where the currently top voted comment is a pertinent summary)

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#14

Post by deepGem » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:02 PM UTC

A great bunch of ideas but hopeless presentation. Why the heck does Forbes use this slideshow style of presenting ?

Loved the rent-a-green box idea and also the socks subscription :). Who could've thought about socks and underwear subscription, really :). Thanks for posting.

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#15

Post by deepGem » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:03 PM UTC

iqster wrote: post #4

I must be really sleepy. I clicked on the article thinking ... 20 million "dollar businesses" ... wtf? Parse Error. Need more caffeine.

LOL

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#16

Post by DevX101 » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:05 PM UTC

DevX101 wrote: post #11

1. Rent-A-Green Box Entrepreneur: Spencer Brown * Product/Service: Environmentally friendly moving supplies, delivery and pickup Start Date: 2005 Startup Costs: $7 million Revenue: $2.6 million in 2009 2. Mabel's Labels Entrepreneur: Julie Cole Product/Service: Personalized, permanent labels for kids' stuff Start Date: 2002 Startup Costs: About $10,000 Revenue: $4 million in 2009 3. Fatheadz Entrepreneur: Rico Elmore…

11. Neuberg & Neuberg Entrepreneur: Larry Neuberg Product/Service: Importing gold for gilding Start Date: 1962 Startup Costs: Virtually none Revenue: Estimated $3 million in 2010

12. Deeplocal Entrepreneur: Nathan Martin Product/Service: Promotions mixing the digital and physical Start Date: 2006 Startup Costs: Financed out of initial $30,000 contract Revenue: Estimated $1 million-plus in 2010

13. BlackSocks Entrepreneur: Samuel Liechti Product/Service: Sock subscriptions Start Date: 1999 Startup Costs: $30,000 Revenue: $5 million in 2009

14. DNA 11 Entrepreneurs: Adrian Salamunovic and Nazim Ahmed Product/Service: DNA artwork Start Date: 2005 Start-up Costs: $2,000 Revenue: $1.4 million in 2009

15. The Fiero Store Entrepreneur: Matthew Hartzog. Product/Service: Parts and accessories for the Pontiac Fiero Start Date: 1991 Start-up Costs: $5,000 Revenue: $2 million in 2009

16. Heritage Link Brands Entrepreneurs: Selena Cuffe and Khary Cuffe Product/Service: African wine Start Date: 2005 Start-up Costs: $75,000 Revenue: $1 million in 2009

17. Jimmy Beans Wool Entrepreneur: Laura Zander Product/Service: Knitting and crochet supplies Start Date: 2002 Startup Costs: $30,000 Revenue: $2.8 million in 2009

18. PetRelocation.com Entrepreneur: Kevin O'Brien and Angie O'Brien Product/Service: Pet travel Start Date: 2004 Start-up Costs: $97,000 Revenue: Estimated $4 million in 2010

19. Murray Associates Entrepreneur: Kevin D. Murray Product/Service: Eavesdropping detection and counterespionage Start Date: 1978 Startup Costs: $5,000 Revenue in 2009: $760,000

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#17

Post by klbarry » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:05 PM UTC

I interviewed Spencer Brown of Rent-A-Green-Box almost two years ago via phone. He is a really cool guy and was happy to talk to a student for about half an hour. His strategy for marketing was mostly what he calls the Gorp cloud - the interconnected world of green media which can mention him to all prospective customers. He spent a fortune on R&D in the beginning (http://changingclothing.recojeans.com/introduction-2/) but was profitable cashflow wise in the first week.

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#18

Post by axod » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:15 PM UTC

deepGem wrote: post #14

A great bunch of ideas but hopeless presentation. Why the heck does Forbes use this slideshow style of presenting ? Loved the rent-a-green box idea and also the socks subscription :). Who could've thought about socks and underwear subscription, really :). Thanks for posting.

> "Why the heck does Forbes use this slideshow style of presenting ?"

To artificially inflate page views and advertising impressions.

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#19

Post by haribilalic » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

dansingerman wrote: post #13

transition wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just got 20 times the amount of page views though. If they provided a list that means you could have skipped through and decreased their page views.

Really? I stopped at the second one and decided to read this thread instead (where the currently top voted comment is a pertinent summary)

That's still twice the page views that they would have received if it was all on one page.

Re: 20 Million-Dollar Businesses You've Never Heard Of

#20

Post by mechanical_fish » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 2:19 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #2

These are what I call real startups. Many of them are imaginative and solve real customer needs. I hope that many of them can grow into thriving businesses. One point that I think is interesting is that even though they're all "offline" businesses, most were started with very little capital investment. I sometimes get the feeling that the HN crowd is a bit (understandably) myopic and focuses too much on simplistic we…

the HN crowd is a bit myopic and focuses way too much on simplistic websites.

Perhaps. But we focus on websites because those are what we know. This is a web-based community of web-based hackers. We've got that in common.

Presumably the communities of "breeders of goose-chasing dogs" spend a certain amount of time discussing the realities of the goose-chasing dog business. I know for a fact that communities of chicken breeders know something about the free-range egg business, and that if you hang around with enough folk musicians you will eventually learn something about the folk-musician business.