Easy invention ideas? Why easy? Sometimes it’s just too intimidating to think about building a new type of car, television, or other complicated invention. So these are ideas for garage or basement tinkerers. Coming up with a prototype for most of these will cost no more than the money in your pocket. They are not patented yet, as far as I know.

Wild Game Carrier

Deer hunters regularly die of heart attacks while carrying their bucks out of the woods. The invention here would solve that problem. It would have an inflatable wheel, using coated nylon that won’t puncture easily. Once you get your deer, blow up the wheel, and using the clamps on either side, you attach two poles or sticks that you cut on site. Attach the simple nylon sling between the sticks, and you have a wheel-barrow-like device that will carry a deer over even rough trails. Probably weighing no more than two pounds, it could be carried easily in a day pack.

Helium Kites

Perhaps its been done, but I haven’t seen them sold yet. With some lift from the helium, these kites could be flown in any amount of wind. Properly designed, they would still fly something like a kite, and with some maneuverability if designed like a stunt kite. A first prototype could be a kite with a small helium balloon attached. That’s an easy invention.

Ad Kites

This is more of a marketing idea than an invention. Have advertisements on kites and get paid to fly them at the beach or during big outdoor events. In my former small-town home they paid for planes to drag ads around during festivals, so the market might be there.

Disposable Clothing

If dollar stores can keep putting t-shirts on the shelves, we know they are getting cheap to make. So how about a line of shirts that are low-quality, but good enough to use, and cost very little to manufacture? You sell them in boxes of 12, as “disposable clothing.” Where’s the market? Maybe people who want less laundry to do on long trips. I set aside old clothes for just that purpose, which is where the idea came from. Also, some people might want to have some cheap things to wear for doing dirty jobs.

Kayak Shoes

Imagine this: You are wearing two little “kayaks” on your feet. Two more smaller ones at the end of two ski-poles help you balance as you walk across the nearest lake. At 8 feet long and 8 inches around, they would hold about 170 pounds each, by the way. To try this one, remember that to figure the volume of a cylindrical object, you multiply pi (3.14) times the radius squared times the length. Oh, and each cubic foot of air will support about 64 pounds.

Wind Tents

An easy invention idea from childhood. Me and my brothers spent summers at the beach, on Lake Michigan. Many nights, the wind blew steady off the water, and we discovered that we could make a “wind tent” out of an old blanket. With three sides pinned down, using rocks and sand, the wind held the “tent” open. We camped out in these tents, although when the wind died, the tent did. Maybe someone could make and market a plastic version. A colorful square of plastic – this is one of the easiest of the easy invention ideas.

Sometimes new money making ideas are immediately usable. However, sometimes you just have to let your imagination run wild and be impractical. This is a way to get that creativity going, and no matter how crazy the ideas may seem at first, there is usually a way to bring them down to earth, as in this first example.

Rental Cabins In The Air

I started with a crazy thought: “What if people could rent a cabin up in the sky for the weekend?” Right away my mind tries to make sense of the idea, and because the over-all goal is to have profitable innovations, it looks for ways to make it into a money making idea. I first imagined cabins which are suspended under large hot-air or helium balloons.

As much fun as it might be, this didn’t seem very practical. When I explored the idea further, though, I wondered if existing balloon-ride businesses could tap into other markets. If, for example, the gondolas were outfitted properly, and the balloons tethered, so they could be allowed to float two thousand feet overhead, would meditators then pay for a peaceful meditation retreat in the sky?

Another thought came to mind. Balloons could be high in the air, but easily cranked back in on a line. This might be simpler and cheaper than traditional rides, which involve chase vehicles and unpredictable landings. Perhaps this could be another way to make money with the balloons, charging a lower rate for simple up and down rides, and so getting new customers that couldn’t afford the usual rides.

This is how a crazy idea comes back to earth. Perhaps even the “weekend cabin in the sky” idea could someday be a money making idea, but if not, that’s okay. The point here is to get the creative flow going, and then find more practical ways to channel the output.

More Crazy Money Making Ideas

The following are pure imagination. I leave it to you to find a way to make these ones into potential money making ideas. Good luck and have fun!

- Put seats on the wings of an airplane and sell rides to thrill seekers.

- Sell advertising scratched out on the face of the moon.

- Rent out the animals at the zoo.

- Start an underwater school.

- Make a roller coaster course people pay to take their personal cars on.

- Sell pets genetically engineered to die young, for those who hate long-term commitments.

- Rent out children to undecided prospective parents.

- Have marriage insurance policies that cover the cost of a divorce, just in case.

- Have a swimming pool restaurant; diners sit in floating seats and eat off floating plates.

Scan the list and stop on any of the crazy ideas that catch your attention. Chances are good that you can find some way to transform it into a more practical idea, and that is the point. This exercise in imagination may be fun, but it is also a profitable technique for generating money making ideas.

Sometimes new money making ideas are immediately usable. However, sometimes you just have to let your imagination run wild and be impractical. This is a way to get that creativity going, and no matter how crazy the ideas may seem at first, there is usually a way to bring them down to earth, as in this first example.

Rental Cabins In The Air

I started with a crazy thought: “What if people could rent a cabin up in the sky for the weekend?” Right away my mind tries to make sense of the idea, and because the over-all goal is to have profitable innovations, it looks for ways to make it into a money making idea. I first imagined cabins which are suspended under large hot-air or helium balloons.

As much fun as it might be, this didn’t seem very practical. When I explored the idea further, though, I wondered if existing balloon-ride businesses could tap into other markets. If, for example, the gondolas were outfitted properly, and the balloons tethered, so they could be allowed to float two thousand feet overhead, would meditators then pay for a peaceful meditation retreat in the sky? (more…)

Grabbing opportunities with open arms is often easier to talk about than to actually do. Most people find themselves dreaming about being rich but never actually doing anything about it. A combination of procrastination and ‘what if’ syndrome can cripple your creative spirit and might mean your idea will never become a reality.

Socrates said “Action equals knowledge’. He was one of the greatest philosophers of our time. What he meant was that it is through action that we achieve results.
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