Thursday, December 09, 2010

Web Developer Steve Gadlin Draws 1,000 Cats


Web Developer Steve Gadlin had an idea for a company where he draws cats for $10 each.

As Jen Sabella describes it for HuffPo:

While drawing felines is not a typical business venture, Gadlin figured that "I Want To Draw A Cat For You" would be low maintenance. All he needed was some paper, a few Sharpies and a website. Gadlin works as a web developer for WCIU/Weigel Broadcasting by day, so the site was easy enough. Then he made a commercial:




He approached Groupon, a social media company the specializes in letting people know about interesting deals thru Twitter, email, Facebook, etc. It was a success.
"I submitted this deal to them," he told HuffPost Chicago. "I just pretended that this was a very legitimate business...that draws cats for ten bucks."

A Groupon sales rep got in touch with Gadlin, and loved the idea. While some higher-ups resisted, Gadlin's cat art offer ended up as a Santa Cruz side deal...$3 cat drawings on Cyber Monday.

Initially, he expected to sell maybe 20 or 30 drawings through Groupon. That was not the case, and the deal ended up selling out. Now, he has more than 1,000 cats to draw.

The rest is at HuffPo.

2 comments:

Dan Reynolds said...

Hey, someone else wanted to sell us rocks and he made out pretty well.

I like the guys who try to sell you a name for a star. Btw, in case you ever wondered...that's totally bogus...the scientific community does not acknowledge the name. The idea of bottled water, if broached, say in the 1970's, would have had people laughing their ass off at such a notion.
How about that bracelot that keeps you from falling over ...NUrenew bracelot. That shows people will fall for anything.

I think I'll sell kind thoughts. Send me $10 and I'll spend one minute thinking nice thoughts about you. It will make you a better, more energetic person, full of life and vigor. It will make me fabulously weathly, and as a result, I'll have all the more free time to think nice thoughts about you...for ten bucks, of course.

Roy Delgado said...

Hey Dan,
Sounds good to me. The check is in the mail.
Peter