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Hipster Business: ‘Weird People Doing Weird Stuff'

Rohin Dhar, founder and chief executive of Priceonomics, as well as author or "Hipster Business Models," said that a perfect example of the Hipster Business Model is a man claiming he sold jellyfish tanks -- even when he had no tanks or experience selling or creating jellyfish tanks.

"He bought some Google Ads and put up a website, and then someone called him up and said, 'Hey, we need a $25,000 jellyfish tank,'" he told Press:Here. The man, credited in the book, learned the hard way, but eventually created a $500 version of a jellyfish tank and helped launch the home jellyfish aquarium market.

"(A hipster) is a young person who realizes it’s not that hard to at least start a company right now," Dhar said. "They start a company, tech or no tech. Why not try it and see?"

Most of these businesses tend to start small without a lot of devastating losses, but can be getting a "hipster" closer to his or her dream of creating an app, a coffee shop, a beard cream, or jellyfish tanks. "It’s weird people doing weird stuff," he said.

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