Rich people have a lot of stuff. There's money to be made in designing the stuff. But there's also a good buck in making and selling them organizational objects for their stuff.

That's the lesson learned by Ian Holme and Phil Hadfield. Britons and school buddies, the duo burned out on corporate jobs in their 30s and vowed to launch their own business. Looking around the product space, they noticed that storage objects for watch collectors seemed pretty dated, and guessed if they produced something more modern, it would sell.

They started out with this simple Watch Deck. The pair opted to avoid "fiddly watch pillows" and went with wooden pillars instead. (That dowels are easier to make than small pillows may have played a role.)

The design is simple, clean, basic, and straightforward to manufacture: Four watches on pillars, a drawer on the bottom, and a hardware-free acrylic cover that allows you to see the watches.

Originally retailing for $95, the Watch Deck sold like hotcakes. Holme & Hadfield, the company they formed, branched out into other storage/display objects for collectors of other items: Knives, coins, sunglasses. They also expanded their watch offerings.

They kept the designs (and resultant manufacturing needs) simple; the most complicated thing I see in their line-up is a hinged acrylic lid.

In just three years, the pair went from zero to USD $6 million in sales; they claimed to have shipped over 100,000 units, which I think is pretty staggering for a startup. A number of the customer reviews rave about the packaging, which I'd hoped to find shots of, but no dice.

Anyways, just a reminder that if you're looking to start making and selling stuff, targeting specific subcultures, and particularly the underserved areas of those markets, can pay off handsomely.