The essence of any startup is unusual ideas and ways to implement them. However, despite the short history of this financial phenomenon, it is the start-ups that have caused the success of many modern brands.
Profitability and success are the main criteria for the selection of projects, which we used to draw up our list of five unusual startups. We are sure that any startup should bring its founders millions and even billions of dollars.
Stripe — service for fast online payments
This business project has unusual features. The fact is that two simple country guys from the Irish countryside have become multimillionaires. In 2010, the Internet turned into a global digital market, but traditional banking systems were not ready for active transactions on the Internet.
These brothers came up with the technology of accepting payments for goods and services through a code that they embed on a web page. In order to release the payment gateway, the user should simply download and install a specialised application.
It took the brothers two years to complete all the stages of the business plan, from the concept of seeding to testing. After that, global investors noticed this startup, including Elon Musk, who also made an investment in this project among the first.
Then, it was joined by one of the founders of such a payment system as PayPal, which probably is well versed in the specifics of any online payments. The brothers from the Irish village earned more than two billion dollars of investment in the first ten years of this startup, and in 2017, they won honourable places on the Forbes dollar billionaire list.
Fast food with 3D printer
Swedes are able to come up with unique ideas despite their phlegmatic Scandinavian temperament. Today, the production of artificial cricket meat has been realised. Previously, uprinting food companies invented printing semi-finished products on 3D printers. According to the declaration of the startup administration, food waste converted into minced grinding, generously seasoned with spices and flavour enhancers are used as a starting material.
Traditional fast food has a similar cooking technology. However, the idea of three-dimensional semi-finished products became very popular among those people who aspired to live in trend and keep up with the modern world. Cutlets and doughnuts from a 3D printer is something you can only fry and serve on the table immediately. In The Lounge restaurant, snacks and desserts are also one of the most popular dishes besides hot food.
According to forecasts of financial analysts, in 2023, the market for 3D products may grow to half a billion dollars. Cricket meat may be the main raw material for three-dimensional Swedish burgers in a couple of years, as Sweden is one of the world leaders in the fight for the environment.
A million dollars from dog sunglasses selling
Such an idea for a startup could arise only in the United States because it is the country with the highest number of dogs and cats per capita. Also, the United States has a hot climate and the number of sunny days per year far exceeds the number of cloudy ones.
American entrepreneurs came up with the idea of selling sunglasses and corrective glasses for pets. So, in the first year they earned more than $1.000.000. Soon, this business became much bigger. So, fashion clothes and animal accessories have become a popular product too. Vests, jackets and boots are not a mandatory condition for keeping dogs, but owners were moved by such products and therefore they spared their money for this.
Today, every supermarket in the world has a department with clothes and accessories for dogs. This is why the idea of American animal lovers has evolved into a multimillion-dollar international business for several years.
First million earned by teen
Sweet tooth isn’t always a bad habit. A young Scottish teenager named Frasier Doherty loved his grandmother’s jam so much that he mastered all the traditional recipes and founded a startup called SuperJam, which raised sales to 500.000 cans of jam a year. Today, this company occupies the tenth share of the jam market in the UK, and the capital of this young man is estimated at two million pounds.
Woman millionaire from social networks
An American high school student completes our list of five unusual startups. She was able to earn over $1.5 million by selling interesting templates for the MySpace social network. Today, this young woman earns more than $7.000 a month. With this money, she can pay her own mortgage and tuition at the most prestigious university in the United States.