In this day of memes and viral posts, you just never know when you might accidentally create the next big thing.
In September, 2012 Bryan Bundesen posted a photo of his sister's perpetually grumpy-looking cat, Tardar Sauce, on Reddit and it took off as a meme. When Bryan saw the response he uploaded more photos and videos and registered the domain name www.grumpycats.com. Within 3 months, Bryan and his sister had made $3,000 each.
They trademarked "Grumpy Cat" and her image at the end of January 2013. Grumpy Cat was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal on May 30, 2013 and on the cover of New York magazine on October 7, 2013.
As of September 8, 2014, "The Official Grumpy Cat" on Facebook had over 6.5 million likes. Tardar Sauce has been in movies and TV commercials, has books on Amazon, and her likeness and name is licensed to countless products - even coffee.
Did Bryan plan to start a business when he uploaded that first photo? No. What he did, though, was to recognize an opportunity and take advantage of it.
Keep your eyes and ears open, think entrepreneurially, and the next big thing might just be your idea.
