4 dumb ideas that made people rich

Sam, I have a list of what I'm calling

dumb ideas that made a million dollars.

These are obscure lists that really only

people like you and me would ever even

keep. But I have a list of dumb ideas

that actually worked.

I say dumb not because I think they're

dumb. I actually think they're genius

cuz I think being clever and doing

simple things is actually a form of

genius. But I think other people would

call these dumb ideas. So, I want to run

through them with you and I want you to

give me your reaction to each one.

>> All right, let's hear it.

>> All right, first one came up. I was

watching uh the NFL playoffs, which were

on this weekend. I don't know if you've

paid any attention, but like the Chicago

Bears, who have sucked for a long time,

are in the playoffs, and Chicago has

this rival, the Green Bay Packers, and

the Packers have been great for a long

time, and the Bears have sucked for a

very long time. And so it's like kind of

a rivalry just by like location, but

they're not really they're not really

like close rivals. And so I'm watching

the game and I look and in the crowd I

just see a ton of people wearing like I

don't know how much you know about

football, but do you know what the

Packers fans wear on their head?

>> Yeah, cheese heads.

>> Cheese heads. So what do the Bears fans

wear?

>> I don't know. Helmets. I I don't know.

>> Cheese grers. And so I see all these

fans wearing this like silver cheese

grater hat and I'm like, "Oh, that's

clever." Like we're about to shred the

the the Green Bay Packers. We're going

to shred the the cheese heads. Um, and

I'm like, "This is really smart." So I

started looking at what's the story

behind this. And the story behind this

is kind of crazy. So if you go to

foamparty hats.com, this business

started in 2017. So, Grace Rojos and her

son Manuel Rojos, they they create this

thing and they had actually for like,

you know, 15 years, they had just for

fun been making like fun party hats,

like I think for their own daughter's

like party, they made fun party hats for

all the guests. People loved it and they

kind of gave it up and then they moved

and then they like started again and

they're like, "We're going to make these

foam hats for special events, parties,

occasions, and sports." And so, they've

been kind of like trucking along. They

got on Shark Tank and they got a they

gave up 25% of their company for 100

grand, right? So like you know this deal

with Mark Human.

>> Yeah. And you know birthdays, weddings,

corporate events, uh they had all these

like novelty hats and then came the

boom. So this uh greater head thing has

just taken off and become this like

viral frenzy. So like basically the

Bears, they have this coach. I don't

know if you've seen this guy Ben

Johnson. He's kind of got like if Sam

Par was into football energy a little

bit. He's just basically this young

coach who's supposed to be really really

smart. He's super like ripped. So every

time in the postgame, he'll like in the

locker room he just like rips off his

shirt, which like most of the old like

70-year-old coaches would never do. And

he gets his team like really fired up,

but he gives the game ball to this guy

>> who comes out and I don't know if you

can see this, but he's he's this wide

receiver DJ Moore. He's wearing the hat.

Um, and so he's he's wearing this, this

guy DJ Moore, and he starts d the whole

team starts chanting, "Go DJ, go DJ."

There's a little Wayne song. He starts

dancing. This clip goes viral, right?

This has 2.2 million views. And suddenly

these hats are flying off the shelves.

And they they do like 10,000 orders in a

week, which is like half a million

dollars in a week. They have this huge

weight list now, huge backlog because

they make these by hand apparently. And

this idea of like teamsp specific

novelty merch cuz like if like sports

fans like when I went to that Warriors

game I walked out I bought my son a

jersey a little ball but it's like all

so like vanilla. It's all cookie cutter.

It's like the same things over and over

again. But with social media the teams

now have little like trends, little meme

moments. And if you could fastf follow

those meme moments and create stuff

that's going to like kind of make

somebody laugh or be worth sharing on

social media, you can actually get a lot

of spread. And so that's what this

company's been doing with these hats and

going viral. So they've built a

basically a, you know, million-dollar

plus business now off of these like

novelty foam hats. Isn't that wild? They

do a really good job of making me into

the story. Uh, like it looks like it's a

like a Hispanic like family and looks

like the son is kind of the CEO and the

mom is like one who is the brains and

kind of came up with the idea and

originally made it.

>> It looks pretty awesome.

>> Yeah. But I think if somebody takes this

idea, there was another company like a

t-shirt company. I can't remember the

name, but they were doing this for

sports teams where they they realized

like the drop shipping infrastructure

has become so good that if anything

happens in the game like last night,

within an hour after the game, they can

have the store up for that product, for

that slogan, for that thing. Linsanity

happens in New York. And then they go

they have like the Linsanity like line

ready to go. And so I forgot what the

name of this company is, but they're

basically like rapidly like much faster,

like orders of magnitude faster than the

the typical like merch industry creating

teamsp specific moment specific uh

merch. And I just think that's like a

it's not the it's not the best business,

not a business I would want to be in,

but it is like a simple man's business.

Like anybody can understand what they're

doing and be able to like try to

replicate that. And then if you niche

down even all the way, forget t-shirts,

like to giant oversized foam hats. It's

like, there's a million-dollar business

sitting in in oversized foam hats, which

is pretty wild. All right, ready for the

next one? [laughter]

>> Yeah, that that was a quotable last

line. There's a million-dollar business

sitting in oversized foam hats.

>> All right, so a lot of people watch and

listen to this show because they want to

hear us just tell them exactly what to

do when it comes to starting or growing

a business. And really, a lot of people

who are listening, they have a full-time

job and they want to start something on

the side, a side hustle. Now, a lot of

people message Sean and I and they say,

"All right, I want to start something on

the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a

good idea?" And again, what they're

really just saying is, "Just give me the

ideas." Well, my friends, you're in

luck. So, my old company, The Hustle,

they put together a hundred different

side hustle ideas. And they have

appropriately called it the side hustle

idea database. It's a list of hundred

pretty good ideas. Frankly, I went

through them. They're awesome. And it

gives you how to start them, how to grow

them, things like that. that gives you a

little bit of inspiration. So, check it

out. It's called the side hustle idea

database. It's in the description below.

You'll see the link. Click it. Check it

out. Let me know in the comments what

you think. All right, here's the next

one. So, as you know, a long time ago, I

was running a business called

birthdayalarm.com. This was a business

started by Michael and Zoe Burch. It had

been going for 20 plus years, printing,

you know, millions of dollars a year. It

was one of the earliest viral businesses

ever. So I think Birthday Alarm has had