Photo by CC user OzeFroze on Photobucket
They say that there is a million and one ways to make a million dollars, but to be honest, most of them are quite boring and predictable. Wondering about some of the weird ways people have made money through history?
If you are, this post will reveal some of the more unconventional methods that people have used to acquire wealth over the years.
1) What do the Butlers, The Three Amigos, and an anonymous guy from Kansas have in common?
In a culture where people associate the making of millions of dollars from the creation of an idea that ends up changing the world, making a vast fortune by simply having picked the right numbers is considered by many to be weird.
A trio of ticket buyers stumbled into hundreds of millions of dollars on March 30th, 2012. On that day, they shared a jackpot worth 656 million dollars. Merle and Patricia Butler, a group of teachers from Maryland known as The Three Amigos, and an anonymous player from Kansas now control more wealth than countless entrepreneurs that cashed out of their businesses after years of struggle.
Not that we’re jealous or anything.
If you’d like to try this weird way of accumulating wealth, you can play mega millions online, even if you aren’t on American soil. Good luck!
2) From cardboard boxes to millions
When people think about million dollar ideas, they think of the latest smartphone app, or a technology that changes how people live their lives. One of the last things they consider are the many boring things that make our daily lives possible.
Zhang Yin of Hong Kong became fabulously wealthy by embracing this maxim. She found her opportunity by purchasing low-cost paper from the United States and turning them into cardboard boxes.
By getting out in front of the rise of the Chinese manufacturing economy in the early 2000’s, she became a major supplier of the boxes they needed to package their products for export. Within the space of a few years, she rode this unorthodox wave to the fortune that she enjoys today.
3) How posting cat pictures can make you a fortune
As fun as browsing cat pictures on the internet can be, few would think of it as a money-making opportunity.
Erik Nakagawa thought differently, as he knew that all the eyeballs that browsed websites that posted pictures of cute cats could translate into a windfall in advertising revenue.
With this hypothesis firmly in mind, he launched IcanHasCheezburger.com. He sold it for several million dollars just a few years later, having proved it to be a lucrative cash flowing website.
4) Meet your new pet rock
Undoubtedly, the person that would end up winning the weird wealth Olympics (should it ever be held) would be none other than Bill Dahl.
In the 1970’s, he took a load of stones that he got from a construction supplier and monetized them by creating the concept of the pet rock. Selling them at just under $4 each, it ended up netting him over 56 million dollars.