48-Hour Wristband Sales
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A story about how Shaan and his friend pivoted from over-planning a restaurant business to creating a profitable wristband business in 48 hours.
"When I was 21, we were working on a sushi restaurant chain. After 9 months of planning with binders full of business plans, we realized we were just playing startup. So we challenged ourselves: Could we make $1,000 in a weekend?
My buddy Trevor noticed all the sorority girls and frat guys wearing these thick wristbands on campus. We decided to make customizable versions. We called it 'The Fat Band', bought the domain instantly, used Impact font for the logo, and found suppliers on Alibaba.
We calculated we needed to sell 700 bands at $1.50 each to make $1,000. We started posting on Facebook and calling everyone we knew. We found one girl who was having a family anniversary party - she ordered 250 bands. We took payments through PayPal.
We hit our $1,000 goal that weekend. That feeling of getting to $1,000 - I still feel how good that felt. It showed me what doing something real felt like, compared to everything else we'd been doing which was fake. It changed how we approached our main business, and the wristband business became a nice side hustle."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.