Genius ideas someone else has had but you wish you'd thought of first

Let’s see your favourites

Not sure where to start with this one?

Monkey Tennis

The inventor of this is probably a zillionaire by now.

I came up with the idea of the Dyson airblade hand drier thing while on industrial placement at uni in about ’96. I was doing a (really interesting 🙄 ) project on removing water from cans using air knives and thought it would be a great way of drying hands in public toilets.

Came up with a few ideas, kept meaning to buy some bits to mock up a prototype but never got round to it. Then saw an article in The Times around 2005 about how James Dyson was about to take over the world with his new airblade hand dryer.

I blame my amazing ability to drag my heels and procrastinate. Arse.

Warm weather bobsleigh

Can I say that I wouldnt call the OP’s idea genius 😆

Buying an Operating System on the cheap then licensing it to IBM.

a no parking disabled access required sign

Warm weather bobsleigh

It is the name on the bobsleigh which makes it genius.

Registering “Marley” as a trademark for selling marijuana cigarettes when it is eventually decriminalised. Genuis.

Registering “Marley” as a trademark for selling marijuana cigarettes when it is eventually decriminalised. Genuis.

Yeah, that one is genius, isn’t it?

I was so disappointed when I found out it was a thing 🙁

Solar washing lines.

EDIT – I seriously considered one of those toilets for a very small cloakroom at our old house, my wife would not let it happen.

Internet software to allow you to chat to like minded losers.

In the 70s my father was dismissed as ridiculous when he suggested photographs be captured using an imaging sensor and stored on a hard drive.

Sadly for the lack of any forthcoming inheritance he clearly listened to them.

The cat flap

Carbon Paste at less than eight quid

Tandem unicycle

I had the idea for YouTube in the 1990s but back then everyone was on slow dialup so it wouldn’t really have worked, then life got in the way and I never did anything about it.

$800 million the founders got when they sold YouTube.

I had the idea for gaming warehouses years ago, long before multiplayer was a thing.

That taught me that having a good idea is dead easy, we all get them all the time.

The real genius is people who can put good ideas into practise.