Unexpected Ways That Have Made People Rich

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There is no single way to become rich. The richest people in the world have made their enormous fortunes in many different ways, but none of them can say exactly what it takes to be ultimately successful. It will definitely take a lot of hard work in developing a product and finding an investor, but more importantly, it will take a lot of luck, which not everyone has. Some may win a big jackpot in the lottery, or inherit money from a wealthy relative, but such people will not make the list. 

It could be an outlandish business model, a treasure hunt, investing in a tiny start-up that becomes extremely popular, or some other way to make a fortune. There are indeed some exceptional individuals who have become rich under bizarre circumstances, and this selection will tell you about them. 

Gary Dahl 

While many of his friends complained about their pets requiring care and constant maintenance, Gary Dahl came up with the idea of the perfect pet. It requires no care, no food, no walks, no medication and no trips to the vet as it simply cannot get sick. While his friends took the idea as a joke, Dahl took it seriously and started developing the product. Using his expertise in marketing, he created his "Pet Rock" product. Thanks to good advertising and an attractive brand presentation, Dahl became a millionaire within a few years, selling over a million of these "pets". This is a good example of how you can get rich by selling simple stones. 

David Cheriton 

David Cheriton is like any other university lecturer. The 63-year-old Canadian billionaire has been a mere computer science professor at Stanford University since 1981. His alleged net worth of $3.3 billion was accumulated in a unique way. The professor invested in ideas and business plans of students of the university helping them to get off to a successful start to sell stocks and make huge profits. With many investments, success was rather modest, and his one big winner and jackpot. This happened when Larry Page and Sergey Brin told Cheriton about his Google idea, after which he invested $100,000 in the company. That initial investment has now brought him over $1 billion, putting David among the richest people in the world. 

Jason Sadler 

Jason Sadler founded iwearyourshirt.com in 2009 to try and sell a rather unique service. In exchange for a donation, Sadler was willing to wear a T-shirt with any advertisement throughout the day. Prices started at $1 on January 1st, $2 on January 2nd, reaching $365 on December 31st. This allowed him to earn over $80,000 in his first year in business. After that, Sadler doubled his prices and hired several people willing to wear shirts as well. By increasing the availability of the service he also increased his cash flow. By 2012, the service was earning several hundred thousand dollars a year. 

Chad Mureta 

Chad Mureta was a real estate agent when he was involved in a serious car accident in 2009. After lying in hospital for six months and recovering from serious injuries, he noticed that doctors were freely using his iPhone the whole time. So the idea was born to create a digital fingerprint scanning app to make the smartphone more secure. He found a developer online who was willing to do the app for $1,800. Paying with his stepfather's credit card, Chad launched the app on the App Store, where he eventually earned more than $620,000. But he didn't stop there, and continued to pursue new ideas, eventually earning several million dollars. 

Eric Lowes 

In 1992 Eric Laws took his metal detector and decided to help a friend find his lost hammer. While searching for the tool, Eric found a treasure trove with a set of silver and bronze coins and jewels with thousands of years of history. You may check the value of your coins too, at pacificpreciousmetals. Unfortunately, laws in the United Kingdom do not allow anyone to appropriate the treasure found. Instead, the treasure becomes the property of the Crown and is usually given to a museum for public viewing. The law provides fair compensation to the finder of the treasure as a percentage of the market value of the find. This means that Lowes and his farmer friend, who owned the land, split almost $3 million between them. 

Guy Laliberté 

Guy Laliberté was a rather poor street performer from Canada when he came up with the idea of creating a travelling circus. Gathering other street performers he knew, he co- founded Cirque du Soleil after obtaining permission from the local government. Cirque du Soleil is now one of the most famous and successful circuses in the world. It has offices and performers in major cities around the world, serving over 4,000 employees. Since its inception, the circus has been visited by 90 million people from all over the world. The show is so successful that it regularly exceeds $800 million in annual revenue and Lalibert's fortune is in excess of $1.8 billion. 

Rick Schwartz 

Rick Schwartz had the idea to register potentially popular domain names in 1995. He continued to register popular names for websites and then placed advertisements on them. The sites began generating modest returns, but Schwartz decided to capitalize not only on the ads, but also on the names themselves. Since 1995, the American has sold 20 domain names for more than $500,000. Popular domains include Men.com for $1.3 million and Candy.com for $3 million, which he initially bought for quite a bit of money. Other good deals included the sale of iReport.com to CNN for $750,000. 

Will you be the next person who finds unexpected fortune?

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