Make Millions with Yo-Yo's

From: Entrepreneur.com

"Imagine turning an idea you hatched during your morning shower into a $5 million business--in just three years. That is precisely how Don McNeill, the Wilmington, Delaware, inventor of You've Been Sentenced, conceived of his now wildly popular board game for kids ages 8 and up, which uses a deck of 540 pentagon-shaped cards to come up with ingenious and hilarious sentences.
"I started with an idea, one investor and $50,000, which was just enough to pay the bills," says McNeill, 43. "My daughter drew the prototype on her computer, and I called people I knew from a 20-year career selling commercial printing and gave them one-quarter of 1 percent of the company to help me produce the game."
It's a success story you can emulate. With the right idea, enough upfront cash and sufficient market research, it's possible to turn your dreams of entering the $22 billion toy industry into a viable career--and have fun doing it. But while brilliant ideas and cash are certainly paramount to success, toy industry insiders say it's the research that can make or break your toy empire. "The industry is strong, but you need to find holes in the marketplace and target them," says Chris Byrne, aka "The Toy Guy," an independent researcher and strategic marketing planner for the youth industry. "You also need to make sure that what you're planning to do is consistent with current trends and consumption patterns. For instance, right now the hottest toy trends are in electronics [like Nintendo DS, Webkinz and Wii], arts and crafts, and ‘narrative' toys that expand a child's cognitive activity and inspire the imagination, so these are definitely areas you should explore. It's always easier to go in the direction of the market than to buck a trend.""

read full story at http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2007/august/181676.html