The American Dream: with hard work, dedication, and a little perseverance, you can achieve anything! Or so they say.
Capitalism in the U.S. lead us all to believe that every business venture we pursue can help us achieve the dream of being a successful and wealthy business owner. Though, not every business idea is meant to be.
We went to Ask Reddit to hear some of the worst business ideas that people have ever heard. Some people even went as far as to go on the popular TV show Shark Tank.
Redditor Imaginary_Trainer654 asked:
"What's the worst business idea you've seen someone try to execute?"
Let's see how bad these ideas really can get.
Real life Craigslist.
"There was a guy in my town that opened a business that was the equivalent of a brick and mortar version of Craigslist or newspaper classified ads. It was a unit in a strip mall with bulletin boards. You paid to put an ad up and other people came to look at the ads with a small picture. This was AFTER Craigslist existed, not some pre internet thing. There was no actual merchandise in the store, just crappy pictures of stuff with the contact info."
"It wasn't even a high foot traffic location, you had to maneuver through a busy intersection, park and go inside to look at a bulletin board. It went under and he tried to blame the landlord because he couldn't get a sign permit for the end of the building even though he had 2 other signs."
"This one is straight up insanity."
"It's like trying to pitch the idea of dedicated instant messenger services (AOL instant messenger style) for desktop computers well after Slack, Zoom, Facebook, Instagram, and a whole slew of other services already exist."
"This is worst actually. This is more like selling a service where people write messages on a post-it to each other."
Soup Tubes ruined her relationship.
One Redditor called back to another subreddit for relationships.
"Does anyone have that reddit relationship advice thread. The one where the girlfriend is questioning her boyfriend's intelligence after his 'great' business idea."
"Soup delivered to peoples houses via pipes."
"I give you…soup tubes."
Here's a excerpt from that poor woman's post:
"I have been living with my boyfriend for about 7 months. Two weeks ago he sat me down and presented a powerpoint presentation with his business idea. I knew he'd been working on an idea, but he didn't want to tell me about it until it was finished. Based on his enthusiasm and his prior seemingly intelligent nature, I thought maybe it'd be a pretty cool idea."
Instead he presented to me an idea about "soup tubes". The idea, if you can call it that, is to construct a series of tubes throughout our city that leads to centralized soup kitchens. For a monthly subscription, a customer can 'subscribe to a tube of soup,' and a tube extension would be built off the nearest mainline tube and directly into the customer apartment or home. Based on subscription level, that would determine the quantity of soup a customer could pour and how many types of soup. The 'tubes' are basically the size of pipes, like you might see under a sink, but he insisted that, 'It MUST be called soup tube, not soup pipe, tube just zings better.'"
Always secure the merchandise.
"Father-in-law drove 18 hours down to Florida to catch shrimp, filled his tiny car with tons of the shrimp and drove back. It took days to vacuum seal the shrimp that hadn't gone bad only to sell a few bags to some friends, the car smelled like seafood for years."
- Truedeal
"Missed one key step, preserving the catch."
"Reminds me of a friend that tried to grow weed in the woods. Ended up working like a charm! He has so much weed he could barely pick it all. Filled multiple garbage bags with it. Loaded the bags into his car. Then....well he didn't research properly and just let it sit. He tried to smoke some wet weed,, but as you can guess, it wasn't burning.. A few days later it was covered in hot mold and the car smelled like a planet sized skunk exploded in there."
There's definitely a law against this.
"When I was in high school, one of my friends wanted to start a little coffeeshop/hot chocolate stand with a 'cuddle corner' and 'free hugs for anyone who wants them.' She offered jobs to our other friends -- ex. the idea was that this little business would be operated and staffed by high schoolers."
"She failed to see the issue with having 16 year old girls required give free hugs to customers or having to staff the cuddle corner."
"It could be very successful, but to all the wrong people."
"'I love escorting people. I put an ad out for an escort service and got a LOT of responses. Mostly creeps. Made a few friends.' - Dwight Schrute"
The Ionic Ear.
"Can't believe no one mentioned that guy who went on Shark Tank to pitch a Bluetooth ear piece that you got surgically implanted in your ear canal that you charged by sticking a needle in your ear while you slept."
"The Ionic Ear!"
- Film2021
"I can only imagine the FDA approval process on something like that."
Not your average subscription box.
"Monthly sex-toy subscription. You would get a different sex toy each month, which is an OK idea I guess, there's one of those for everything nowadays, but the only problem this guy had is that he wanted the customers to eventually return the toy so he could pass it on to the next customer. He actually got in talks with an owner of a local sex shop to help him start, but the enthusiasm flattened out quite quickly..."
"Remove the return part of it and you have kinky lootbox. With the right marketing I think you could make decent cash, assuming you had adult industry connections to sex toy manufacturers and could get your ads on pornhub, pobably big dollar signs."
People Break Down Their Greatest Accomplishment On The Internet | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Really couldn't beat the competition.
"In about 2005 my friends dad tried to start an arcade....in a small town, just outside walking distance from a school using beat up 2nd hand machines... To get there from the school youd have to walk by an established, larger arcade that also sold food...."
"It all sounded fine and dandy until you mentioned the larger arcade with food."
Maybe don't invest with your own funds.
"Guy I know got a small inheritance. Enough for a deposit on a unit or small house."
"Nope! Sea-horse farm."
"Turns out sea-horses are difficult to breed."
- Yeeemz
"What would you even use sea horses for? Pets? Those weird dried up seahorses in tacky gift shops?"
"They're super popular as pets for saltwater/reef aquariums. Not a bad idea if you have the know-how on how to breed them, especially since most are wild caught, so there's a huge demand for captive bred animals. Would say it's more of a bad execution than idea."
Just banana pudding.
"The banana pudding store."
"One day, my ex-BF and I were taking a stroll downtown in the city that we were living in at the time. We passed a store that was called The Banana Pudding store (or some such, I don't remember exactly)."
"Well, I'm sure they sell more than just banana pudding, so let's go in. You know, like how Home Depot sells more than just hardware. They sell Gatorade, candy bars, etc."
"There were vats of banana pudding in the display cases and I thought, "Well, surely they must also sell other flavors," so I asked if I could have a chocolate pudding and the guy politely informed me that they didn't have chocolate pudding. So I asked if they had maybe butterscotch or something else. 'No ma'am, just banana pudding here.'"
"I mean, it wasn't false advertising. But surely he couldn't be selling just one single flavor in that whole shop, could he? As expected, the next time we strolled down that street a month or two later, the store was shuttered."
"I feel bad for him. I'm sure that the guy made great banana pudding that all of his friends and family would compliment him on and tell him that he should probably open a banana pudding shop 'cuz it was so good. But I don't think they literally meant that."
Don't try to cheat your customers.
"At a place I used to work, we supplied printing companies with their ink. Being that digital printing is well and truly established at the point, there wasn't a whole lot of business for this type of ink anymore, so there was a lot of competition between suppliers."
"One of the technicians somehow weaseled his way to the top despite no business experience. When he was told to very simply make more money, rather than go out and find new customers, his bright idea was to make our company's ink weaker, with the intention that our customers will just have to buy more product to complete their jobs."
"Surprise, the customers didn't like that and went to competitors. Business was closed within a year."
"There was a lot more sh*t he would do, I could probably fill a book with stories from that place."
- Sajiri
"I've seen a lot of ideas on here that had some good points and bad points and ultimately failed, and I've seen a good amount that made me think it could work out if they knew what they were doing/had more money to invest/marketed to the right people. But this...I can't imagine any way he thought this would work. Maybe if they were the only supplier, but he knew they had competitors in the market and decided to just make their product worse? Oh man, what was this guy thinking? And how did anyone approve it? So many questions."
"His concept is all too common, unfortunately. No change in price but reducing contents of all sorts of goods from peanut butter in a container due to making the dimple underneath deeper to reducing the number of stitches in seems on clothes."
Myspace for Strippers.
"Context: I live in Las Vegas."
"When I was in my 20s, I was hired by a man who wanted to build 'Myspace for Strippers.' His goal was for the men on the site to pay him to follow their favorite strippers and know what clubs they were dancing at and when.
"He shut the project down (after months of paying me) when he found out that no stripper would sign up for it."
"'Sign up to get stalked'"
- Yukimor
Why would anyone call this guy?
"One of the younger dudes in my karate class was going to start a handyman business. 24h, anything needing to be done, anywhere in our district."
"Sounds good. You gonna get a loan and buy a used truck and get some tools? And you never have talk time on your phone, so will you get a landline (2006, so not super outlandish)?"
"'No, I'll go on my bicycle. And I'll just use the tools they have. And they can email me when they need service.'"
"Right because when I have water spraying out of my geyser through the ceiling at 3am I'm going to email a dude on a bicycle to come fix it using all the tools and the ladder I don't own..."
"On a bike? Okay. Sure.
"Not having your own tools AND showing up on a bike?"
"He's just a f*cking dude riding a bike."
"Rent-a-Dude."
The juicer that juiced... bags of juice?
"That crazy expensive juicer from several years ago that used proprietary juice packets. You could just poke a hole in the packet and hand squeeze the juice for free to save a few hundred dollars."
"Maybe I'm stupid but I thought the point of a juicer was to take whole ingredients and make juice out of them."
"That device is how I got introduced to the AvE YouTube channel, he took one apart and was awestruck at the over-engineering in the device."
Just a little too late.
"Dude bought 150k fidget spinners at the height of the craze..."
"It took months to ship out from china and by the time all his sh*t arrived, the mania had ended and the retail price was already near his original wholesale price."
F*ckin' guy still has fidget spinners today. I guess he may eventually do ok on it. But god damn..."
"I get trying to capitalize on a popular trend, but 150k is ridiculous. Even when it was at its peak everybody pretty much knew it wouldn't last."
"It literally appealed to people with short attention spans..."
- vhante1
Really poor choice in words.
"One time many years ago my friend and I were in line behind a woman who had a shirt emblazoned with the word 'Taint.'"
"He inquired about it and it turned out it was her clothing company. She explained that she loved the word 'taint' '…like, taint this, taint that.'"
"He explained the popular meaning of the word to her and her face dropped."
"I was mortified but he probably did the right thing."
"Also, I'm old and this happened pre-Google. Perhaps around 1999? Maybe she could have Hot-Botted or Excited it."
- Brad3000
How do you not see the patterns after a while?
"I have a friend whos family has gotten involved in multiple pyramid schemes. And every single time they get into a new pyramid scheme, they claim its not a pyramid scheme."
"No, no, no you don't get it. I AM the boss. Once I produce 5 clients for my mentor, then I keep all my new clients and they have to get ME 5 new clients EACH. ITS PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE!!"
"I can see Kramer doing this. Actually I can see him doing everything in this thread."
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How some of these ideas got this far is beyond believable. Luckily for a few, there were people in their life who were there to give them a reality check.
Unfortunately for others, not so much.
May this be a cautionary tale, do your research before investing your time and energy into what could be a very bad business idea.
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When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.