In just eight words, 22-year-old serial entrepreneur Matthew Carpenter sold the world on his now-viral e-commerce idea:
We send glitter to the people you hate.
Carpenter's website Ship Your Enemies Glitter became an overnight hit, receiving nearly 3,900 upvotes and more than 1,000 comments on Reddit within 24 hours. After all, for just $9.99, consumers could pay back a former flame, horrid boss or loathed frenemy by sending "them so much glitter in an envelope that they'll be finding that shit everywhere for weeks." Tie that in with the site's snarky, frat-like tone and you have "the ultimate troll product," according to Product Hunt's Ryan Hoover, that people can't ignore.
In an ironic turn of events, the concept of sending glitter to the people you hate has turned the product into one its founder has quickly grown to hate. Carpenter has made his annoyance known on Product Hunt, posting on the discovery site:
Hi guys, I'm the founder of this website. Please stop buying this horrible glitter product - I'm sick of dealing with it. Sincerely, Mat.
Carpenter's glitter-laced genius only got us thinking about every other odd thing you could mail — and we weren't alone.
Roughly a month or so ago, Matthew DiStefano, an account manager at Somerville-based product discovery site The Grommet, was in the office when his co-worker received a huge box of potatoes from his parents in Idaho.
"I thought it was really funny to see so many potatoes sent as a gift to us to take home," DiStefano said. "Everyone was really excited and took one home to eat."
He serendipitously stumbled upon a Reddit post titled, "My brother mailed me a potato again," and it clicked.
Cue Send A Potato.
"I have gotten everything from, 'This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen,' to, 'This is the next pet rock.'"
The site helps users do exactly that: send a potato to their "friend, parents, cousin's dog's dentist's kidney donor or whoever else" might be delighted to find a spud in their mailbox, sans box or envelope. "Just a potato with an address and stamps right into their mailbox."
The potato can be sent anonymously. DiStefano acknowledged, however, that the act doesn't stay anonymous for long given "there is always 'that friend'" who would be the potato-sending type — it's an easy antic to pinpoint.
"When someone gets a potato from us," DiStefano said, "there will be one person in their group they will think of immediately."
To make sure the concept worked, DiStefano sent a potato to himself, from an out-of-town location, to his parents' house and to a few friends and family members. Everyone got a kick out of it, but he's since received some criticism, too.
"I have gotten everything from, 'This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen,' to, 'This is the next pet rock,'" DiStefano said. "The typical reaction is, 'Why would anyone want to send a potato?' to which I just answer, 'Why not?'"
DiStefano has built in an added incentive, though. For every $10 potato purchased, $3 goes to the World Food Program USA, a humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. According to DiStefano, the money donated can buy up to 12 nutritious meals for a starving child, turning a more humorous campaign into one with an outcome that goes far beyond laughs.
The founder did wax poetic about potatoes himself, admitting his appreciation for spuds of every form: "french fries, mashed, baked or any other ways."
As he said, "You will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't like potatoes."
But after all that handling in the mail, plus the Sharpie and stamps, he does warn, "You might not want to eat the potato." If you do, just peel the skin off first.
Image via Send A Potato
