I watched a podcast with Seth Godin. He seemed fed up with people trying to pitch him business ideas. If I were to describe his sentiment from memory, it sounded a bit like this:
“You want to know how to tell if something’s a business? Try one run. Let’s use coffee. If I can drive to New York, and get a bag of locally roasted coffee, and drive back to my office, and sell the coffee for a profit, that’s a business. Everyone’s coming up with marketing and a strategy and a vision before they’ve even tested if the idea’s worth pursuing.”
In that same podcast, he talked about Tom’s Shoes, and how the brand had 2 distinct ingredients:
I walked around my office that day and noticed Owala water bottles on top of desks. Colorful. Custom. Cute little flip top lid.
And I figured: “what if I made something that lived on your desk, that you could tell someone you were proud to pay for?”
TKFP was born.
I made custom keyboards, and, instead of charging for profit, I asked my customers to donate an amount of their choice to Elijah’s Promise, a food bank in New Brunswick.
It was perfect in my head. Just as custom and colorful as an Owala. Perfectly suited to the needs of a new grad working in tech. Visible every day in the office.
Now I just needed to learn how to pitch it.