How many times have you had a weird business idea? And how many times have you come frighteningly close to letting it slip? Say, at a meeting? We’re guessing you held back because a huge part of you realised that your idea was straying quite far from the sunny plains of ‘innovative’, to the rundown seaside town of ‘odd’.

Well we’re here to tell you that there are plenty of strange business ideas that have turned out to be successful hits.

Now, we know what you’re thinking, ‘Sure, but none of them will be as off the wall as mine’.

Hold that thought. We’ve compiled a list of some of the strangest business ideas out there, and trust me, your idea is going to feel a whole lot duller by the time we’re done.

Which is…good?

Cuddle Party

Yes. It really does do what it says on the tin. Cuddle Party offer a safe, consensual way to enjoy being tactile with other people. There are entire workshops dedicated to mass cuddling and a big emphasis on the health benefits associated with it.

Now, that’s all very nice and all, but let’s face it, how many of us would have felt comfortable enough to bring up that idea in front of our friends? And yet, all over the world this cuddle culture is taking off in a big way.

If you think that’s odd, just keep reading…

Rent the Chicken

Yep, you can rent chickens. Which means one day, a group of people sat together, probably over tea, and then one especially visionary person piped up with; ‘Chicken rental, there’s just not enough of it in my opinion’.

And just like that, Rent the Chicken was born. The little company offers families the opportunity to have their own small clutch of hens and thus have the delight of fresh eggs. All the equipment you need is included and means that you can essentially have a trial and see what chicken ownership actually entails. There’s also a separate company which allow you to rent a goat for weed removal and we haven’t checked but we’re pretty sure that somewhere out there you’ll also be able to rent a penguin simply because they’re cute.

Snail Facials

See. We told you this was going to get weird. It’s a concept that’s been around a few years now but in the glorious year of 2017 there seems to have been a boom.

In a perfect world, this is the point where we would point out that no actual snails are involved, but this is not that world and I’m afraid to tell you that a snail facial is exactly how it sounds. Snails that have been carefully nurtured in an organic environment are let loose on your face, leaving their signature trail behind them.

To be completely fair, there seems to be plenty of data suggesting it does help your skin, but all we can think about is that someone, somewhere, caught sight of a snail and probably thought something along the lines of ‘wait a snail-trail moment, we’re missing a trick here!’

The point of this exercise was to push you to be brave. In a world where snails are beauticians and hugs are commercialised, it’s fair to say even the craziest of your ideas would be hard pushed to be scoffed at.

And you never know, you may just hit upon a winner.