17. The Guy Who Became a Millionaire Selling Common Rocks
One night in 1975, Gary Dahl was out drinking with friends, who complained about the time and effort spent caring for their pets. So he joked that a rock would make a perfect pet, since it requires no care. It was a stupid drunk idea, but when he mulled it over sober, Dahl figured there might be something to it. So he collected smooth rocks from Rosarito Beach in Mexico, which cost next to nothing. Then he wrote a humorous 32-page owner’s manual, titled “The Care and Training of Your Pet Rock“, with instructions on how to care for and raise one.
Dahl then stuffed everything in a straw-lined box that represented his biggest expense and marketed his Pet Rocks for $3.95 each. They sold like hotcakes. As he put it later during an interview: “I was the only one sold on my idea. My wife thought I was crazy. A lot of my friends thought I was crazy. And… it worked“. The craze lasted for only a few months, but in just two and a half months, Dahl sold about one and a half million Pet Rocks. Before they went out of style, 5 million Pet Rocks had been sold, and Gary Dahl had become a millionaire.