Ship Your Enemies Glitter just made its founder a very rich man.
Matthew Carpenter, a 22-year-old from Australia, launched the site just two weeks ago funds from his PayPal account. He advertised the ability to ship the nearly impossible to clean glitter to rivals, and before long the site was swamped by orders.
The Carpenter’s conscience got the best of him, and he decided to put the site on Flippa, an online marketplace where entrepreneurs can sell their websites.
The ad for Ship Your Enemies Glitter wrote as follows.
“$20,000+ in sales and 2.5 million visits in 4 days, hugely popular viral site! As seen in Entrepreneur Magazine, Time Magazine, Yahoo, USA Today, Slate, DailyMail, FastCompany, Mashable, and more! This popular viral site allows you to send your enemies glitter filled letters!!! [sic]”
The bidding rose quickly, topping $70,000 in just the first few days and eventually settling on $85,000 for a final sale price.
Carpenter said he made another $20,000 in the few days he was operating Ship Your Enemies Glitter , but sounded very happy to be rid of it. In a message to potential buyers on his start-up site Product Hunt, he asked that they reconsider what they were doing.
“Hi guys, I’m the founder of this website,” he wrote.
“Please stop buying this horrible glitter product — I’m sick of dealing with it. Sincerely, Mat.”
Even the site itself seemed to have quite a disdain for glitter.
“We f***ing hate glitter,” the pitch opens.
“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.”
Matt Carpenter said he will fulfill the original orders from Ship Your Enemies Glitter , and it appears he has gotten out of the market just in time. A number of other entrepreneurs noticed the site’s wild success and a handful of competitors have already popped up, including British-based Glitterbombs and America’s “Mat Won’t But We Will.”
