10 Simple Inventions Which Happened Accidentally And Made Millions In The Market

Who would have thought a simple idea could really change the concept of the whole human community. Whenever we think of people who invented something which has made our life easier, the thing that pop-up in our mind is of a brilliant and studious scientist. But that is not true for every invention. Some of the most popular products we use today were an accident. Some got there by chance, whereas others occurred while the inventors were trying to discover something else. But those accidents changed the entire industry.

Here is the list:

1. Frisbee

It all started back in 1948, when Walter Frederick and his girlfriend used to spend their time by tossing a lid of a tin of popcorn to pass their time, He named it as a “flying-saucer” and later he termed it as “Pluto Platter”. Wham-O bought the idea in 1957 and launched the product in the market in 1958 as Frisbee. Well, the inventor had made like half a million dollars in royalties in 1970 later. In 2012, around the world more than 300 million Frisbees were sold.

2. Hula Hoop

In 1800s, British sailors first saw hula dance in Hawaii island. The sailors noticed that the body movements of hula dance and hooping are quite similar, and from that the name “hula hoop” originated. Hula hoop has went under various transformations over the period. Eariler hoops were made from bamboo, wood, grass, vines etc. Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin of the Wham-O company holds the trademark on the name “Hula Hoop”, thou they were not the inventors. Later in 1958, Wham-O started to manufacture hula hoop and they sold more than 100 million units in 2 years.

3. Post-it

It was first created by Dr. Spencer Silver a chemist at 3 AM company. During a research to create a very strong adhesive Dr. Spencer developed a special adhesive that sticks, but also releases easily without leaving any residue. In 1973, Spencer with Geoff Nicholson (products laboratory manager at 3M) thought of making adhesive bulletin board on which one can stick pieces of paper but that idea failed. Then happens the second accident. Art Fry, another chemical engineer at 3M was frustrated losing his song page markers while singing in a church choir, this gave him an idea and he used Silver’s adhesive to help the papers from not falling out. Then Fry suggested Silver and Nicholson to use adhesive on a piece of paper and not on to the bulletin board. After few more practical application, market failure and changes in prototypes “Post-it” became a success. In the first year (1974) after the product was a success it earned $2 million and in 2012 it has already earned more than $ 1 billion.

4. Band-Aid

Band-Aid was invented by Earle Dickson in 1920. Earle was a researcher at Johnson & Johnson. While cooking his wife used to get small cuts and burns regularly, to which he decided to cover the wounds without assistance. The first patches were not successful as they were handmade. Later, sterilized Band-Aids were made which was produced by the company Johnson & Johnson. Band-Aid had already gained popularity during the World War II. And by 2001 around 100 million units were sold.

5. Slinky

Slinky was invented by a Mechanical Engineer Richard James in 1943. While he was working to devise springs that could keep sensitive ship equipment steady at sea, accidentally some samples fell off the shelf and he saw them gracefully hopping up and down. James came up with an idea and with his wife Betty, planned to turn his invention into a toy. The couples borrowed $ 500 to manufacture their first Slinkey. At initial stage the sales were very slow but soared after a store allowed demonstrations for Christmas 1945. First 400 Slinkys were sold within few minutes. By the end of 2012 more than 250 million Slinkys have been sold.

6. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

In 1984, John Harvey Kellogg and his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg left some cooked wheat accidental on the stove. When they saw it the wheat had gone stale but they decided not to throw it away. After this they thought to continue the process by forcing it through rollers in a hope to obtain sheets of dough but ended up getting flakes, which they toasted and served to patients. Today Kellogg’s is a multinational company and it is the world’s number one producer of cereals. Their products are sold in more than 180 countries.

7. Crocs

Three friends Scott Seamans, Lyndon “Duke” Hanson, and George Boedecker Jr. came up with an innovative idea in 2002 and developed it as boating shoes. They would have never imagined that the shoe will get such huge popularity. In 2011, the brand had an annual turnover of more than $ 1 billion.

8. Velcro

In 1948, Swiss engineer George de Mestral went hiking with his dog in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. When he returned back to his home, he noticed tiny hooks of the cockle-burs were stuck on his pants and in his dog’s fur. That made him wondered if he can use that idea in real life. After more than eight years of research and work, he developed Velcro, a combination of the words “velvet” and “crochet”. The crochet is covered with thousands of tiny hooks and velvet with thousands of tiny loops. This made the material gripped together firmly which can be easily released too.

9. Smiley

The original version of smiley face was created back in 1964, by Harvey Ross Ball, in Worcester, Massachusetts. State Mutual Life Insurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts bought the Guarantee Mutual Insurance Company of Ohio and the merger resulted in low employee morale. So, they hired Harvey Ball as a freelance artist, to make something which could increase morale. Ball finished the design in less than 10 minutes and was paid $ 45 for his work. State Mutual Life Insurance first produced 100 buttons for their employees, but soon the demand soared up and company started ordering buttons in batches of 10,000. Neither Harvey nor the insurance company bothered to copyright the creation. Later in 1970s, brothers Bernard and Murray Spain added a tagline “Have a happy day” which was later changed to “Have a nice day”, and they copyrighted the logo/slogan combination. By 1972, 50 million buttons and countless other products like posters, greeting cards, shirts, coffee mugs etc were sold.

10. Spanx

Spanx, is a body-slimming fashion which is quite popular among women. Sara Blakely invented spanx in 1998. One night, Sara couldn’t find the right stockings to wear under white pants, so she cut bottom of some tights ans wore under her tight white pants and went to party. She looked fabulous, thinner and had no panty lines. An idea emerged into her mind and Sara invested her savings of $ 5000 and started the business. By 2012, the company was worth more than $ 1 billion.