The guy who created Rainbow Loom is Malaysian-born inventor Cheong Choon Ng. He's made £80 million in just three years. He was a former engineer at Nissan and Rainbow Loom bands are all the rage right now.

They are basically tiny elastic bands that are used to create colorful bracelets.

Cheong, who lives in the U.S. came up with the idea in 2010 when he came home from work finding his children using rubber bands to make crude jewelry.

“When I saw them it reminded me I used to make the same stuff during my childhood,” he told Thanh Tran, the founder of Kidpreneur, in May.

“In Malaysia we don’t have so much toys to play with so we play with sand, rock, marbles and rubber bands.”


"So I sat down with them and said, ‘let me show you how to do it the right way’. I found the rubber bands were falling apart and I couldn’t hold them together and I thought ‘jeez there must be an easier way’.”

Then Cheong made a board out of scrap materials and showed it to his daughters. They were so impressed he managed to use multiple boards and create diamond patterns using the bands. 

It was originally called Twistz Bandz, but he renamed it to Rainbow Loom after finding out another company had a similar name.


Business picked up when Learning Express Toys made an order of 24 looms. It sold out in two days.

Then kids started to share tips and creations on YouTube. That provided some free viral marketing for Rainbow Loom.

Cheong isn't flashy rich. In fact, his life hasn't changed much since the success of his business.

He got more marketing exposure when Jimmy Kimmel showed off his "loom suit".


Then Ellen even made him a loom pants to go with the suit.


There are new loom products in the pipeline.


Here's a tutorial over at YouTube on how to make some creations out of them: