He became a very rich man.
An observing barber in Newark, N.J., thought he could make an improvement on shears for cutting hair, invented clippers, and became rich.

A Maine man was called in from the hayfield to wash clothes for his invalid wife.

He had never realized what it was to wash before.
Finding the method slow and laborious, he invented the washing machine, and made a fortune.

A man who was suffering terribly with toothache felt sure there must be some way of filling teeth which would prevent their aching and he invented the method of gold filling for teeth.
The great things of the world have not been done by men of large means.
Ericsson began the construction of the screw propellers in a bathroom.
The cotton-gin was first manufactured in a log cabin.

John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn.