The worst business ideas of all time

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Candidate,

I love how bad some "Shark Tank" pitches are.

Exhibit A: The Man Candle

The Man Candle solves the problem nobody had: It's hard to find candles that don't make your house smell good.

Enter: The Man Candle. It's available in BBQ and other masculine scents, in case you want to sleep on the couch or ensure friends never want to drop by ever again.

"BBQ isn't manly enough for you? You're going to love my fart-scented candle!"

WHAT SUNK THE DEAL: The whole company is too gimmicky, and there just weren't enough customers or profits.

Exhibit B: The Hoodie Pillow

"It's like a hoodie, only less convenient."

Anybody older than 15 knows this doesn't make any sense — what makes a hoodie great is that the hood is always there for you.

Dumb. But the next pitch makes the fart candle and hoodie pillow seem like billion-dollar ideas.

Exhibit C (my favorite): Throx

Imagine you're back in college.

It's 3 a.m., and you're putting off a term paper and flipping through TV channels.

Shazam! A magician with a mullet appears and says, "Do you hate losing socks?"

Sure, we all do.

Then he launches into his pitch:

"The other day, I just wore one sock because I couldn't find its partner. It drove me insane. If you hate wearing mismatched socks or buying hundreds of identical pairs … finally, there's a cure for the missing sock. Behold: Throx."

"But wait, there's more..."

Now you know the real reason I was barefoot on the cover for the first edition of my book:

If only I had Throx. (BTW, the second edition of my book came out in May. Buy it here.)

Anyways, it's easy to laugh because everyone knows why these businesses are failing:

Their products are awful
They don't have customers — nobody wants to buy 3 socks
They don't have a business plan
They aren't profitable — and lack the systems or any real plan to grow

You can learn a lot by looking at failed (or failing) businesses and lousy products.

But what if your service or product is great — and you want to take a side hustle or small business to the next level?

Maybe you're already making a few thousand dollars on the side by working hard in your business.

But you've hit a plateau and found that the same strategies and tactics that got you to where you are now aren't moving you forward as quickly as they once did.

Yet, you dream of multiplying revenues by 2X, 5X, even 10X — and getting your weekends back, maybe even the occasional weeknight for drinks, or a few weeks to travel.

What you need is a nudge in the right direction, someone who's been there to show you the way.

That's what this week is all about. I'm going to show you the systems and mindset I implemented to bust through plateaus at I Will Teach You to Be Rich. And I'll introduce you to the mentor who helped me double the size of my business in a single year.

If you apply what he taught me, you can take a $30,000 side hustle and turn it into a $60,000 income. And if you're already making $100,000 or more, you can hit multiple 6 figures.

The things I'm going to share are fairly advanced, so I don't mention them to most of my readers. But for readers like you, Candidate, they can be a game changer.

Talk soon,

P.S. Over the years, I've read a lot of advanced business articles. Here are a couple of my favorites:

How Data-Driven Marketing Helped Karmaloop.com Claw Its Way Back From Bankruptcy: Look at the difference between guessing what your customer wants and knowing what your customer wants. By the way, Drew is a Zero to Launch Platinum student!
Barbells vs. Treadmills: A Fresh Take on Content Strategy: I love articles that challenge conventional wisdom.
What Does, "It's too Expensive," Mean?: Seth Godin breaks down how to stand out and command a premium price, in any niche.
And a bonus productivity post for busy business owners, courtesy of GrowthLab guest, Ryan Levesque: 6 Productivity Hacks that Tripled My Income.