Yeah, that was my impression too. My take on it is that based on their reputation they can add a bit of creativity to product design that either is not present, or ignored, in their large corporate customer's own internal design departments.

Inventions like the Easy-Open pull tab [1] didn't seem like much at the time either, but the simplicity in the invention helping increase it's adoption. If an invention makes things easier for people, it's definitely worth investigating and potentially roll out to production.

[1]https://www.google.com/patents/US3391820

I can be cynical and say that the invention of the wheel did not look like much to the cavemen either..

Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, the fact that some great inventions were laughed at does not imply that all which are laughed at are great inventions.

But it shows there is a real possibility for a laughed at invention to be great.

It doesn't have to be groundbreaking to make a boatload of cash. Think Purell.