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[shahrukh]

Selling butterflies and making millions? It doesn't seem conceivable, but Jose Muniz has managed to pull it off. You can get your very own live butterfly from Jose, who started the business based on a bet.
 
It all began when a friend bet him $100 that he could not sell butterflies for a living. Now, seven years later, the former business consultant and his wife, Karen, own Amazing Butterflies (amazingbutterflies.com), a live-butterfly distributor with offices in Tamarac, Fla. and San Jose, with a projected $1 million in revenue in 2006.
 
7. Virtual real estate

[shahrukh]

Anshe Chung, or rather her real-life counterpart, Ailin Graef, has gained attention as the first person to reportedly become a real-world millionaire from her virtual-world business.
 
How'd she do it? She bought, developed and sold virtual real estate. While much of her wealth is still tied up in Second Life's currency, Linden dollars, those can be sold for genuine U.S. dollars. Graef reportedly makes upward of $150,000 annually.
 
Anshe Chung's achievement is all the more remarkable because the fortune was developed over a period of two and a half years from an initial investment of $9.95 for a Second Life account by Anshe's creator, Ailin Graef. Anshe/Ailin achieved her fortune by beginning with small scale purchases of virtual real estate which she then subdivided and developed with landscaping and themed architectural builds for rental and resale. Her operations have since grown to include the development and sale of properties for large scale real world corporations, and have led to a real life “spin off” corporation called Anshe Chung Studios, which develops immersive 3D environments for applications ranging from education to business conferencing and product prototyping.
 
8. Selling Irish dirt

[shahrukh]

Alan Jenkins, a Belfast entrepreneur, and Pat Burke, an agricultural scientist from Tipperary, have already shifted around $1m (£512,000) of Irish muck to the United States.
 
Their company, called Official Irish Dirt, has also received online contacts from Irish people all over the world who are keen to get their hands on dirt from back home.
 
It was Jenkins who came up with the idea. During a visit to see friends in Florida he heard some Irish-Americans at a meeting of the Sons of Erin, a community organization for people with Irish ancestry, saying they would like to have some Irish sod placed on their funeral caskets. Soon afterward he met Burke, who worked at the Irish Department of Agriculture, at a dinner party and the business grew from there.
 
Since Auld Sod's Web site, officialirishdirt.com, went online, Burke says he has shipped roughly $2 million worth to the United States, where about 40 million people claim Irish ancestry, and Enterprise Ireland estimates annual sales of Irish gifts at more than $200 million.
 
9. Socks subscription

[shahrukh]

An entrepreneur from Switzerland named Samuel Liechti had a crazy idea to start a company that would distribute socks to subscribers several times throughout the year. For nine pairs, each “sockscriber” pays a minimum of $89 annually to keep the socks rolling in. Surprisingly enough, there is an immense amount of people who are too lazy to grab a pair of calf-high socks at the store and subscribe to this silly service.
 
Each new "sockscriber" receives a calculation of how much time he will save by not making sock purchases: about 12 hours every year, or three weeks in the lifetime of an average Swiss male, which is estimated at 82 years. Liechti brought his "sock-scription" service to the U.S. in 2005. Two years later BlackSocks began selling subscriptions for underwear. Liechti now boasts 60,000 active customers in 74 countries. BlackSocks opened a New York office last year.
 
10. Geese police



David Marcks discovered a lucrative business opportunity when he used his dog to solve a problem that he constantly faced while working at a golf course - the proliferation of geese.
 
David started Geese Police in 1986 as the solution to driving away unwanted geese from town parks, corporate properties, golf courses, or even front lawns. Using trained border collies, they drive away the geese without harming them. Today, Geese Police has considerably grown and expanded, earning just under $2 million in 2000. David has also begun marketing his business to a highly selective group of individuals.