Scrub Daddy rejected? How can that be? It’s a familiar kitchen product found in millions of American homes.

Once made at a Folcroft factory, it was initially rejected and tossed in a closet, writes Kevin Sanchez Farez for Fortune, as reported in Aol.

When Scrub Daddy inventor Aaron Krause, 45, sold his first company to 3M in 2006, he wanted to include the dish sponge he had invented, marketed as a “hard scrubber.”

“They carved [the sponge] out of the deal and left it with me because it was so worthless,” Krause told Fortune in a recent YouTube interview.

So, it sat in an untouched box for three years.

In 2011, urged by his wife Stephanie to clean some moldy lawn furniture, Krause pulled up the rejected sponge from a box marked “scrap” and was stunned to see how the sponge left the grimy chair surface sparkling clean.

“I knew right away this was destined to be the best dishwashing tool in the world,” Krause said.

The once-rejected Scrub Daddy found new life after a successful pitch by Krause on Shark Tank, and his $220 million empire was born.

Find out about Aaron Krause’s early years and more about his road to success in Aol.