DALLAS – From texting to Facebook and Twitter, there's no shortage of ways for us to instantly communicate short messages.
But one North Texas entrepreneur is doing the opposite, slowing down that speed. However, it's the delivery method that's making him money.
Alex Craig is sending potatoes through the mail.
The app developer by day came up with a business idea to send anonymous custom messages to whoever you want on a potato.
"I would say the two things that hold everyone back in life is fear and doubt," Craig said. "The fear of failure and the fear of wasting your time, and the doubt that you can actually achieve something big on a huge scale."
Craig, 24, said he came up with the idea for Potato Parcel earlier this year while having dinner with his girlfriend.
"She said, 'You will not sell a single potato. This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard,'" Craig said. "On our second day that we were live, and we started promoting it on Reddit, and we got $2,000 in orders, and I just knew this was it."
It's a simple idea. Users go online and order a potato, ranging from $8 to $10, add a custom message, and send it anonymously.
"This one says, 'Congrats on Stanford, hope the surgery helps your golf game,'" Craig said, reading a message on a recent order.
It's also an idea that's making money. Craig says he's sold over 2,000 potatoes, and he's clearing $10,000 a month in profit since he launched the site in May.
"We've sent thousands of potatoes to people across the United States, and so, in some sort of weird way, we've had an impact on somebody's life — even for a split second," Craig said.
