This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. Vote for Crocs as the up and comer of 2006 or check out the other nominees in the category.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You may not have thought a brightly colored plastic-looking clog thing would be something you'd clamor to buy -- but then that was before everybody on the planet had a pair.

There's probably not a kid under five who can't be seen trotting along in a brightly colored pair of these comfy shoes ... trailed closely by a mom or dad shod in their own.

Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) went from $1 million in revenue in 2003 to a projected $322 million this year. Its February IPO gave the footwear maker a market cap of $1 billion.

But it took more than a parenting trend to put Crocs on the big boy map. What started out as a lark by three middle-aged business guys turned almost overnight into another American success story thanks to a savvy business strategy. A little celebrity favor didn't hurt, either.

In 2003 the company was doing $1 million in business -- not bad considering sales were largely driven through word of mouth. Then the founders hired an old college chum -- retired Flextronics executive Ron Snyder -- to help them grow to the next level. In 2004 Snyder bought the Canadian business that manufactured Crocs and owned the rights to the resin that gave the shoes their particular comfort and odor resistance -- called Croslite. Now the company owned the means of production ... and suddenly it was a whole different ball game.