14 Awful Ideas from Titans of Industry and Entertainment
They guy who wrote Fall Out Boy’s horniest lyrics tried to start a chain of high-end clubs where you’re allowed to hook up in the bathroom.
Eva Longoria’s Typo- and Sexism-Based Restaurant
Her second failed restaurant was SHe, which gendered their portion sizes — patrons could order She-Cuts, He-Cuts and We-Cuts — and served a mirror with every dessert for folks to touch up their makeup and chastise themselves for overindulging.
I’m at the Lindsay Lohan Club. I’m at the Lindsay Lohan TV Show. I’m at the Combination Lindsay Lohan Club and TV Show
Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club was a one-season TV show about Lohan running her Mykonos club, Lohan Beach House. It featured very little of Lohan herself, which was supposedly a strategic decision, and one visitor described seeing a literal tumbleweed bounce through the venue. The club lasted 13 months, and the show lasted 12 episodes.
The Situation’s $25 Lollipop
Mike Sorentino launched a reusable, bedazzled lollipop handle with the candy brand Sugar Factory. The factory quickly stopped producing the handle, but if you bought yours before the bust, it’s still compatible with other candy refills.
The Guy Who Made GoPro Tried to Make Roblox for Adults
In 1999, Nick Woodman raised almost $4 million for a combination gaming/marketing platform where users could win (and spend) actual money. It shuttered within two years, and became a poster boy for the dot-com bubble burst.
Smokey Robinson’s Ice-Cold Jambalaya
The legendary singer launched a line of frozen gumbos and jambalayas in the early-2000s, which abruptly faded into obscurity.
Kim Kardashian’s Failed Cupcake Venture
In 2010, she teamed up with FamousCupcakes.com to sell “Va-Va-Vanilla” cupcake mix, apparently marketed toward either vaguely lascivious home bakers or Porky Pig. Her cake mix, and in fact all of FamousCupcakes.com, has subsequently been scrubbed from the internet.
Bill Gates’ First Use Case for His Fancy New Computer Was a Bust
At age 16, Gates and his associates founded Traf-o-Data, a company that would compile a report based on data from traffic survey devices. They collected the numbers, but their computer couldn’t compile it. Before they got the bugs sorted, the state started providing those reports for free.
Heinz Wanted Horseradish to Be the Great American Condiment
Before the classic Chinese dish of pickled fish brine known as catsup became irrevocably Americanized, Heinz made their name selling horseradish to the masses. The global financial crisis of 1873 forced Henry J. Heinz to shutter his company, but it revved back to life three years later when they started selling tomato ketchup.
A Hilton Nepo Baby Dropped the Only Marketable Part of Her Hotel Chain
Paris Hilton’s younger sister Nicky got into the family business, but surgically removed the “Hilton” from her brand, calling her short-lived line of hotels “Nicky O Hotels.” The company folded (and she was sued for breach of contract) within a year of declaring confidently, “I know a good hotel when I see one.”
Richard Branson’s Not Great With Animals
His failed ventures from his teenage years include a parakeet breeding business that folded after his inventory started mating faster than he could sell them, and a Christmas tree stand that ended when his rabbits ate his product.
Pete Wentz’s Public Indecency Clubs
Wentz opened up a line of nightclubs around the world called, melodramatically, Angels and Kings. Despite (or because of) his insistence that “anyone can go and have sex in the bathroom and not get in trouble,” they all closed within five years. One had a 2.5-star Yelp rating.
Neil Young’s Fancy HitClips
PonoMusic was Young’s attempt “to create a movement to bring back the soul of music” by selling $400 iPod knockoffs that were able to play higher quality audio. It had a surprisingly good eight-year run.
Blake Lively Tried to Make Her Own ‘Goop’
Lively set out to make a website that was “part magazine, part e-commerce hub, part philanthropic endeavor and — above all — a place to showcase the power of imagination, ingenuity, quality and (simply put) people.” The key to a good wellness grift is to not overthink it, so Preserve was doomed from the start.
50 Cent Gave the Sex-Having World Blue Balls
Mr. Cent announced a line of condoms called Magic Stick, but pulled them before they hit store shelves because, ominously, “I wanted things in it that wouldn’t work.”
