Lori Greiner / For Your Ease Only

Lori Greiner is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and television personality known as "the Queen of QVC." Born in Chicago in 1969, she started as a freelance journalist and playwright before inventing a plastic earring organizer in 1996 — a single product, a single utility patent, and a $100K loan from a bank that she paid off within 18 months. That product launched For Your Ease Only, Inc., her Chicago-based product-development company, which now holds more than 120 US and international patents on consumer products across jewelry organization, kitchen, cleaning, beauty, and travel. She has personally invented or co-invented well over 700 products and famously converts about 90% of what she takes on into a "hit."