Two weeks ago, the founder of the site that offered customers the service of sending their enemies glitter asked users stop buying his product. Ship Your Enemies Glitter, a single purpose website that lets customers anonymously send their enemies glitter, has now been sold for US$85 000.
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The founder, Matthew Carpenter, an Australian, was so swamped with orders that he decided to stop the website and put the business up for sale.
He posted on Product Hunt, a startup news site, and asked potential users to stop. “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 ran the site for four days, and claims that he took in more than US$20 000 in sales, exceeding his expectation.
“For the past few days it has been stressful dealing with all of the media attention and even more so because this was only intended to be a small side project. It’s taken on a life of its own, and I want to watch it continue to grow under a new owner,” he said.
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The site was sold on Flippa, an online marketplace where entrepreneurs can trade in start-ups, domains or toolkits for building a business from scratch. Bidding Ship Your Enemies Glitter rapidly rose to $70,000 in the first days on sale, and then reached a state of dormancy for a few hours, until a further US$15 000 was added on the price.
The buyer, who is currently anonymous, is believed to be legitimate, having spent US$83 000 on the site previously.
The company was not selling anything necessary for one’s existence but what sold it to people was its approach to doing business, which was refreshing to say the least. On its site the company sold its product with some unorthodox copywriting.
”We fucking hate glitter. People call it the herpes of the craft world. What we hate more though are the soulless people who get their jollies off by sending glitter in envelopes”, the sale read, “We’ve had enough so here’s the deal: there’s someone in your life right now who you fucking hate. Whether it be your shitty neighbour, a family member or that bitch Amy down the road who thinks it’s cool to invite you to High Tea but not provide any weed”.
