1996: How A Jellybean Fundraiser Inspired My First Product Launch
1996: How A Jellybean Fundraiser Inspired My First Product Launch
PS: My first time bringing a product to market
"A jellybean playing guitar,” I said.
Dave was slouched back in his chair in the front office of the T-shirt shop called Tattoo Productions in Nacogdoches, Texas, home of Stephen F. Austin University.
“A jellybean playing guitar? Like shredding on a guitar?” I nodded, “Yeah, I can do that,” Dave said with a dismissive handwave.
(This midjourney AI image doesn’t do justice to the actual illustration Dave made.)
Welcome friends, Happy Sunday!
This is a personal story linked to GSD. In today’s letter I’m covering two GSD projects.
It was 1996 and I was 18. On my first day I was invited to play sand volleyball with some guys that turned out to be cool and before I knew it I was in the group which led to me pledging their fraternity and then ultimately joining.
So much for me telling my girlfriend (who became my wife) that I didn’t plan to join a fraternity because I didn’t need to buy my friends!
Anyway, I was appointed the fundraising chair.
I’m pretty sure it went to beer money and parties but was never clear on exactly what the fundraising was for.
Nevertheless, I was eager to make a mark and happy to jump in.
My first idea was basic application of my framework vision, intention, means.
Because we had virtually no money to spend, the means were tight.
I needed to create a fundraising event for cheap. It needed to appeal to other broke college students and be compelling enough to have them part with their money, while also being suitable to the fraternity image since we would all be wearing our Kappa Sigma shirts during the effort.
I had a guitar sitting idle so offered it as the reward.
Dave was older and a great illustrator and was a member of the fraternity too. He agreed to do the artwork for the flyers. Again, keeping the cost down!
We would set up our fund raiser in the student center to take advantage of the high visibility.
My idea, my vision, was to do a raffle for a jellybean counting contest. I paid less than $20 for a big plastic jar from Walmart and filled it with jellybeans.
In the student center we had a few scares by the STEM crowd where they were estimating weight, volume, diameter and so on. One guy even started counting the visible jelly beans making notes on a notepad that had some algebra formulas.
In the end, the best guess was outside of the winning range, and I kept the guitar and the fraternity made some money.
It was seen as a success.
But then...
I had a better idea.
I saw it every day. What students really wanted was cheap food and discounts.
It was a well-known fundraiser to buy these thick coupon books. Imagine taking all your monopoly money out of the game and stapling one side of it. That’s what this coupon pack was like.
But it was bulky, and guys never seemed to have it on them when it was needed. And it was out of sight out of mind.
This was a problem.
I asked around and my hunch was right - although many people bought it, they often didn’t use it because it was never with them when they needed it.
What if it was a card instead?
I imagined the benefit and utility of a coupon card you could keep in your wallet.
While I could clearly see this in my mind, it was all vision and no means and only a vague intention.
How could I even make a card?
Where do you buy plastic cards like this?
How would I even talk to these companies and pitch them on the idea?
How do I put the discounts on the card itself?
How do I get those companies honor a discount card like this?
I called my dad and asked him some of these questions. Since he ran his own business, he was familiar with deal making and turning ideas into reality.
Dad suggested I'd need to have some sort of presentation for the businesses I would approach, an agreement of some sort to sign, and a company to print the card.
This all made sense and so now I needed to problem solve and figure out the means of pulling this off.
Hey Dave!
I went back to the t-shirt shop and asked for help with the pitch and the card design. He was a bit dubious of the idea but willing to help. He said I didn’t need to worry about local business logos as he probably already had them from past projects.
He threw me a curve ball though.
Dave needed to know about my business and logo information.
He'd need that from me so he could put it on the card and in the brochure or whatever I was using to do the pitch.
This had never occurred to me.
I had to figure that out too. Without much concern for my own branding, and little imagination, I just referred to the Kappa Sigma Star and Crescent symbol.
Based on this I said I'd call myself Five Star Productions. Super creative right?!
I ended up learning about the process of a DBA and that's what I did. The business was official.
But…
Dave could be difficult.
And he was.
To quickly summarize, Dave basically said I couldn’t treat him like a magic vending machine where I dump my nickel and dime ideas into him and he cranks out all the aspects of my business with no effort on my part. I needed to get my stuff in order and give him an actual project, not just an idea. Some sales copy. Some specifics on requirements, colors, and examples. A mockup of what I wanted.
And the way I remember it, he waved me off with a “get the hell outta here and don’t come back until it's worth my time” sort of message.
It stung and I didn't know what I didn't know. And I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I knew it wasn’t going to include Dave anytime soon.
Instead of quitting, though, I was still convicted on the vision I had and the problem I could solve.
I put in the reps.
I got brochures and studied them.
I started looking for information on card manufacturing.
I started listening for examples of business deals and presenting an idea or opportunity.
I started sketching my ideas out and working on how to layout a card front and back using a ruler and colored pens.
None of it was well done, and I wouldn’t call it designed. But all of it was bringing this idea into the real world. And the more I had on paper the better I was at explaining what it was and what it needed to be.
I finally got to a place where I knew everything I could know except the specific businesses and their discount offer.
My “project” was ready.
I knew what I wanted to pitch. I knew it needed to be in a binder or on a flyer so I could present it by pointing to pages as I spoke. Printed pages from a laser printer was acceptable and it could be in a 3 ring binder or something similar. Nothing fancy. Just needed to be designed right. I had sample cards and my three color swatches.
It was time to bring my project back to Dave.
He worked his magic and gave me proof prints of the card and because he had a bunch of logos, his mockup was an exceptional improvement over my rough sketches.
I was blown away looking at the design of these cards.
Seeing companies like McDonalds and many others in the three color mockup of both sides was an amazing sight!
I remember having the most overwhelming feeling of creating something!
It wasn’t really real yet, but we were getting there!
At this point I had everything I needed for my pitch binder including Dave’s impressive mockup of the cards as well as a logo of my new company Five Star Productions!
A new challenge was in front of me.
Although I had my binder and pitch, I knew where I was printing my cards and how much it would cost for the printing, and I had my design mockup, what I didn’t have was a way to create a legal agreement that locked in the discount and approved the use of their company logo.
I needed an attorney.
So on break from college, I was back home with my mom and dad and called an attorney out of the phonebook and made an appointment.
I had all my presentation materials with me.
Once I was called back to see the attorney in his office, he gave me a puzzled look. Young people didn’t typically see attorneys, he told me.
Through the course of our thirty minute session, I shared my idea, my pitch, my print proofs, and the company I would print it with. I was excited and passionate as I walked him through it all. And finally arrived at my problem with needing to have an agreement, something legally binding that indicated I had permission to use their logo and their discount offer was valid and they would honor it.
“Yes. You are right,” he said. “You DO need some type of an agreement. What do you think it should say?” he asked.
I told him I wasn’t sure, that’s why I was in his office talking to him about it. He was the lawyer not me.
He pulled a yellow legal pad out.
He started asking me questions.
“Well, do you think it should indicate their business name and address?” I did.
“Do you think it should include a place for the person to sign off to authorize it?” I did.
“Well what else should be in the agreement?” he asked.
I explained that I thought it would need my business information and something that expressed my intention that this was a discount card for the purpose of fundraisers.
“What else.”
I assumed there would need to be a date range showing how long the discount was good for. And to have a clear explanation that they were agreeing I could use their logo on the card. And a way to show they knew they were not being charged anything, just cooperating in the promotion.
“Do you think it should have an area where you can write in the exact discount offer they want to have included on the card?” Of course!
This continued a few more cycles and then the attorney put his pen down and looked over his notes.
“Well Justin, that about does it. This should get the job done for your agreement.”
Remembering what Dave said, I realized now that all the questions were because - like Dave - he needed the details, the requirements, so it was a clear project.
“Great, how much time do you need and how much will it cost to do that?” I asked.
He stood up.
I was a bit confused, and stood up too and watched him tear the yellow sheet off the legal pad. He smiled this very big and genuine smile and handed it to me.
"Nothing."
Holding the page of notes, it seemed as if our meeting was at an end but I didn’t know what was going on.
"I like you and your idea and I hope it works. You’re going to take that sheet of paper and write the agreement yourself. And when it’s typed up the way you like it, you’ll come back and I’ll take a look and tell you if something needs to be changed."
I thought an attorney had to write the agreement.
He educated me on why that was not always the case and even explained that my only recourse for something like this would be small claims and essentially not much in damages.
Within a few days I was back and the agreement was finalized all as a single page and it only cost me time.
All that was left was to lock in some businesses that would offer a discount with me. Because I had some experience asking people if I could mow their yard, or if they wanted an address marker I made, I felt I could just walk in and ask. So that's what I did.
The pitch:
I want to include your logo on our card at no cost to you. We’ll bring you customers and help you build your sales by it being on 1,000 cards. You just have to agree to honor the discount for one year.
The agreement:
Write your name here, business and address there, signature and date there. And in less than 10 words describe the value and offer of your discount here in this box.
The result:
Typically, within five minutes they were either telling me no with a hard pass or wrapping up with the offer message they wanted to use. There was no back and forth, no calls to corporate, just one and done.
All my slots on the card were claimed and I had my exact copy for each offer and discount.
Dave did the final steps of the official offers and logos and provided the digital print-ready artwork and I printed 1,000 of these cards.
This is the only one left. I still carry the card in my wallet 26 years later. My little artifact that reminds me everything is figure-out-able and that its a great feeling to create something of value.
I wish I could show you all these sketches, mockups, contracts, and details, but I lost all that in a flood a few years ago.
I owe a lot to Dave, he planted many good entrepreneurial seeds in me and because of watching him do design in adobe photoshop and illustrator, I had the confidence to buy that software and learn to do it as well – which led to design skills I would use to build a web company during college. And all that played an important part in where I am now.
Hope something here inspires whatever it is that you're working on.
#GSD
Appreciate you,
Justin
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