http://www.citikitty.com

Rebecca Rescate found her niche the way so many entrepreneurs do: She had a need and nobody was filling it. Rescate and her husband, Christian, had moved from Pennsylvania to New York City with their cat, Samantha, into a very small apartment. They really didn’t have space for a cat litter box—or the odor it generated. Rescate had heard about the concept of training a cat to use a toilet, and there were two products on the market to help felines do just that, but they weren’t what she wanted. So Rescate developed a gadget that actually teaches a cat to do his business on the toilet. After a few weeks, the gadget can be thrown away, and pet kitties can relieve themselves on the regular toilet.

“I got a lot of people who rolled their eyes,” Rescate admits. “They’d just look and me and say, ‘Whatever you want to do.’” But once friends and family who had cats heard about it, they all wanted one. So Rescate launched her business part time and kept her day job–until Good Morning America featured her on the show and pet blogs began talking about her. “It was something that became an immediate success, so I handed in my resignation,” says Rescate, who had been working at a tech company.

Educating the public. “Very few people know about this,” says Rescate. “And the people who do know about it often think it’s a joke, that nobody can really toilet train their cat. It’s really hard to get people to understand that you can.”

entrepreneur.com