Pet Rocks - Crazy Business Idea

There were plenty of trends back in the wild 70s. One that I find particularly amusing, although rather a fad then a trend, is that of pet rocks. I should probably mention that a fad refers to something that is very popular for a limited period of time. At any rate, this craze turned an ordinary advertising executive, named Gary Dahl, into a millionaire in just about a few months. The whole idea was to market ordinary pebbles as live pets. Most of us would probably agree that those pebbles with eyes drawn on them looked actually pretty cute, but still...why spend money on something that anyone can get for free?

The price for which pet rocks were sold was US$ 3.95 each piece. The pebbles were imported from Mexico, Baja California, picked up from the Rosarito Beach. They were wrapped in excelsior and then placed in a special box, looking like the ones used for real pets. Dahl actually spent two weeks simply writing a guide for properly raising and having a healthy relationship with the cute pet rock, which he entitled the Pet Rock Training Manual. Apparently, the pet rock could be trained to follow several commands like "sit", "stay", "play dead", even "roll over", although for that they require help from their owners. The guide did not contain any instructions about how to feed a pet rock. And it was also mentioned that they could not be taught to follow the command "come".

The Pet Rock was launched on the market at a gift show that took place in San Francisco. A man named Neiman-Marcus place an order of five hundred pet rocks, and that is how it began to spread around. He sold around a million such rocks in six months, enough to make him unexpectedly rich.

The market was then flooded by such copies of pet rocks, and more entrepreneurs popped up and decided to join the action. They came up with the idea of selling manuals like Pet Rock Obedience Lessons and with offering Pet Rock Burial-at-Sea Services. After the Christmas of 1975, Dahl tried to turn the leftovers into St. Valentine's gifts, but he didn't really succeed, as the fad was actually getting to an end.

The fact is Dahl had actually quit his advertising job to start up this business and established a company called Rock Bottom Productions. Whether or not he kept his fortune after the tremendous success with the clever Pet Rock idea, Gary Dahl grew to stand for one of the most important business figures of our times. He became and inspiration for many other young entrepreneurs, together with names like Don Kracke and Ken Hakuta (who wrote How to Create Your Own Fad and Make a Million Dollars) and Robert L. Shook (writer of "Why Didn't I Think of That!).

The pet rock actually represents an example of how to come up with a crazy idea that people would greatly enjoy and had plenty of financial success. Its memory is still alive to these days, if we are to think that such pet rocks are still to be found on the Internet, for those who'd like to order a pet which doesn't require much time, affection and responsibility from the part of the busy owner. Of course, the idea is so simple and silly that we tend to wonder "how on earth did I not think of that?"But another thing that made it successful was probably people's need to escape a little bit from their stressful lives, full of responsibilities towards their families, their bosses, towards society in general. People who understand this mechanism are likely to become instant millionaires like Dahl did.

Ken Hakuta goes so far as to make an astonishing assertion in this respect: "If there were more fads, there would probably be a lot fewer psychiatrists. ... Instead of paying $100-an-hour therapy sessions, you could just get yourself a couple of Wacky Wallwalkers and a Slinky and lock yourself up in a room for a couple of hours. When you came out, you'd be fine." So maybe a better idea for those with psychological issues would be to find time to indulge themselves in silly acts of playing.