Less than two weeks ago, 22-year-old Mathew Carpenter started a snarky site that sold a single service: It would ship your enemies glitter for a mere $9.99. Today, he's apparently sold the fledgling business for a casual $85,000. 
 
 The catchy idea – simple, clever, provides a great instant visual –and the spot-on nature of Carpenter's copy (glitter is so obviously, as he writes, "the herpes of the craft world") combined to elevate the bare-bones website into a viral sensation. 
 
 Orders began flooding in. Having started the service "as a bit of a joke" Carpenter was apparently ill-prepared for the onslaught. "I'm a 22-year-old dude that has too much free time apparently because now my plans for the next few weeks will consist of sending stupid glitter to terrible people," he told The Daily Mail Australia. 
 
 So he decided to shut it down; in a post on the startup news site Product Hunt, he implored potential buyers to stop ordering "this horrible glitter product" because he was "sick of dealing it." 
 
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 Here at Entrepreneur, we took him to task for committing the "cardinal sin in the entrepreneurial world," namely squandering an opportunity, "the eighth deadly sin of business" and "snatching failure from the jaws of victory." 
 
 And it's true: With more commitment and seriousness Carpenter probably could have had an actual successful business on his hands. (He claims he took in more than $20,000 in orders before he stopped taking them.) Instead, he decided put up ShipYourEnemiesGlitter up for sale on Flippa, a marketplace for buying and selling websites. It just sold for $85,000, The Guardian reports, so despite his lackadaisical attitude no one can say he's not walking away with a pretty profit. 
 
 In the meantime, real-life aspiring entrepreneurs have stepped in to fill where Carpenter left off. Still want to ship your enemies glitter? You're in luck, because a host of new sites will now do it for you. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the ShipYourEnemiesGlitter website, you'll now find this: 
 
 Purchasing has been temporarily suspended. You guys have a sick fascination with shipping people glitter. We've received all orders & working through them. There was a ton so be patient. You can spam me on Twitter for updates@matcarpenter or like the website on Facebook. 
 
 Related: We Should Never Forgive the Horror of ShipYourEnemiesGlitter ||||| Site which offered to send foes ‘the herpes of the craft world’ sells after owner asks users to ‘stop buying this horrible product’ 
 
 The founder of Ship Your Enemies Glitter, a single-purpose website that lets customers anonymously ship their enemies glitter, has sold his business for US$85,000 less than two weeks after starting it. 
 
 Mathew Carpenter, a 22-year-old Australian, launched the site with little but a PayPal account and some well-written advertising copy. But a week later, he was swamped by orders, leading him to put the whole thing up for sale in an attempt to rid himself of what he described as a “horrible product”. 
 
 The site was sold on Flippa, an online marketplace where entrepreneurs can trade in start-ups, domains or toolkits for building a business from scratch. Bidding rapidly rose to $70,000 in the first days on sale, before stalling until the last hours, when a further $15,000 was added on the price. 
 
 The buyer, who is currently anonymous, is believed to be legitimate, having spent $83,000 on the site previously. 
 
 In the four days Carpenter ran the site, he says he took more than $20,000 in sales, far beyond what he was expecting for a website launched “as a bit of a joke”. As a result, he closed the ability to make new orders, and later decided to be shot of the whole site. 
 
 The site gained fame, in part, because of its tone. “We fucking hate glitter,” is how its 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.” 
 
 Shortly before closing orders, he took to start-up news site Product Hunt to ask potential users to stop. “Hi guys, I’m the founder of this website. Please stop buying this horrible glitter product — I’m sick of dealing with it. Sincerely, Mat.” 
 
 In the meantime, he is continuing to fulfil older orders, although, in an email sent to customers, he warned that “there will be a bit of a delay with delivery times, as the site somehow got popular.” 
 
 Whoever has bought the site will find themselves with more competition than Carpenter experienced, however. A number of copy-cat sites have sprung up since he closed orders, including British-based Glitterbombs and America’s “Mat Won’t But We Will”. ||||| Screenshot from ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com 
 
 
 
 Yesterday, a Reddit post about an Australian website that allows customers to send envelopes full of glitter to their adversaries went viral. The site, ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.Com, quickly earned praise for tapping into something many of us probably feel but had never articulated: Glitter is kind of the worst. Or, as the site puts it succinctly, it’s "the herpes of the craft world.” 
 
 Perhaps predictably, the site crashed as it was bombarded by people looking to see what the fuss is about. (And, if they were lucky, pay $10 to glitterbomb their foes.) Luckily, Slate spoke with ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.Com’s founder, 22-year-old Australian Mathew Carpenter, to satisfy our curiosity. 
 
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 Slate: So, why do you hate glitter? 
 
 Carpenter: I've received Christmas and birthday cards over the years from family and friends who put glitter in the cards. I hated it, and I wanted the rest of the world to feel my pain. So that's how the website was born. 
 
 Have you done this kind of thing before? 
 
 I'm 22 and have never been to university, but I am in Internet marketing and have worked on other sites before. The one I'll show you now is www.dickpicoftheweek.com. That said, I apparently have too much free time on my hands because now my plans for the next few weeks consist of sending stupid fucking glitter to terrible people. 
 
 Even though it seems obvious, run me through how this whole thing works. Do you have a glitter distributor or do you just walk down to your local craft store and buy a few hundred pounds of it? 
 
 Actually, I do have an Australian glitter supplier. People decide they want to waste money on sending someone glitter in an envelope, I get their recipient's information, hand-fill envelopes, and ship that stuff out. 
 
 Are you on your own or is anyone helping you with this crazy plan? 
 
 The website is 24 hours old and despite my cries for help I stand alone. 
 
 What happened yesterday? 
 
 A couple of hours after launching, the website was getting pounded with too much traffic for the server to handle so it crapped itself. We had people buying every minute until I took the ability to purchase down. 
 
 In this case I think [traffic exploded] due to the combination of a unique idea, creative copywriting, and evoking an emotion in the user. 
 
 How many orders have been placed so far? 
 
 Over 2,000 of the world’s brightest people have spent money on this service. It's good for business, but bad for society. 
 
 Who, would you say, is your target consumer? 
 
 People with too much disposable income. 
 
 This might be a dumb question, but do you see this a long-term viable business plan? ||||| About the seller: 
 
 Name: Mathew Carpenter 
 
 Location: Newcastle, Australia 
 
 Background: I’m a 22 year old entrepreneur that has been building websites for the past 5 years. 
 
 Site Description 
 
 ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com is a website that allows users to purchase an envelope filled with glitter that is sent to one of their enemies for only $9.99. Although the idea is a bit farfetched, it’s caught on in a big way. After being launched on January 12th of this month it has seen over 2,500,000 visitors, received over 415,000 mentions on Facebook & Twitter & has been featured all over the world both online, in print, on the radio, on TV & even on late night talkshows. 
 
 After being online for only a few hours, the website had received over 2,000 orders generating just over $20,000AUD. Somewhat overwhelmed, I then decided to take the ability to order down despite receiving thousands of emails & tweets from people wanting to purchase. 
 
 Business Model 
 
 The website’s purpose is for people to send glitter to people they dislike or people they just want to play a funny prank on. A user comes onto the website, fills out a very simple form, pays the $9.99 fee via PayPal & I receive the recipient’s name & address. From there, I print out an A4 letter which basically tells the person receiving the glitter that they’re a terrible person. I then fold up the letter with glitter sprinkled all over it, put it in an envelope & ship it off to the recipient. 
 
 The new owner may decide to print out the A4 letters wholesale and improve the margins, same deal with the envelopes & glitter – however, I’ve just been purchasing everything from a local store. 
 
 Monetization 
 
 
 
 The website makes money every time a user purchases a glitter filled envelope. Each purchase is worth $9.99AUD. I’ve calculated that the total cost of shipping an envelope filled with the glitter & the A4 letter to most places in the world from Australia ranges anywhere from $2-$4. That leaves $5.99 to $7.99 profit on each order. 
 
 Time Requirement 
 
 
 
 The new owner will have to decide whether or not they want to ship the envelopes themselves or outsource to a 3rd party. I have received hundreds of emails from people who would like to ship for us for a small fee. I’ve also received emails from manufacturers & factories that have the capabilities to do this on a very large scale. I’ll share these with the new owner, and if the new owner decides to outsource, the monthly time requirement will be close to 0. 
 
 If the new owner wants to ship the envelopes themselves, then the monthly time requirement will be a bit more and will be based on the speed of putting glitter into envelopes, sending at the post office etc. 
 
 Marketing 
 
 
 
 The only marketing that has been done was when I launched which included sending out a Tweet from my own personal Twitter account. I also posted the website to Product Hunt. From there, coverage of the site exploded. The great thing about this website & the marketing surrounding it is that the readers on the publications that post about the site love it! On most of the publications the story has been their most popular of the day & many outlets have continued reporting about the site multiple times. 
 
 Just a few of the major online media publications that have written about the site include: 
 
 What is being included in the sale? 
 
 Included in the sale are the website & all of its files, the domain name & I’ll also forward the emails from people requesting interviews & asking when the site will be taking orders again. 
 
 Future Opportunities 
 
 This website & brand have a lot of potential. The new owner will be able to reopen the floodgates by putting the order form back up on the website. They will also be able to respond to the many press enquiries. That’s short term though. In the long-term introducing other annoying products for users to send is something that could be done. There’s also the opportunity to allow users to send customized notes for an additional charge – there really is a lot to explore here. 
 
 
 
 In the a4 letter that's included in each envelope, the URL is at the very bottom of it. For the new owner they can add their own message, so say they add "get revenge by shipping glitter to your own enemies at ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com." - basically, there's branding on each letter which will keep people coming back for more again and again. Finally, with the coverage the site has received, and the media contacts I've accumulated, the new owner will be able to test things on a large scale. 
 
 What makes this website better than its competitors? 
 
 When the website was launched we had 0 competitors. After a day or two the clones started to appear which I find hilarious. The majority of the clones are terribly designed, lack any sort of entertaining copy & mention my website. Simply put, we’re the leader in this space, and the media coverage of our site proves it. 
 
 Why is the business being sold? 
 
 I launched this website as a bit of a joke not expecting this level of attention. Heck, I launched this website whilst I was on holiday! For the past few days it has been stressful dealing with all of the media attention & even more so because this was only intended to be a small side project. It’s taken on a life of its own, and I want to watch it continue to grow under a new owner. 
 
 Post Sale 
 
 I’m willing to sign a 3 year non-compete contract. I’ll also be happy to provide 30 days of after sale support & training to ensure that the buyer is able to fully take over the website and there is a smooth transition. 
 
 Closing Remarks 
 
 The website is less than a week old & has received press from virtually every major online publication. If you do a search in Google for “shipyourenemiesglitter.com” despite only being a few days old, the site already garners “About 1,620,000 results”. 
 
 Along with the online websites, we’ve been featured on a ton of radio stations, TV shows, podcasts, print & my favorite so far: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. 
 
 
 
 Serious bidders only! Happy bidding!
– Not a bad Internet success story: Step one: A 22-year-old creates a goofy website that allows you to have glitter sent to "people you hate." Step two: It explodes in popularity, so much so that Australian Mathew Carpenter stops taking orders and pleads with people to please, God, stop asking him to handle glitter. Step three: Carpenter just sold the website, called ShipYourEnemiesGlitter, for $85,000, reports the Guardian. A decent result for sure, though Entrepreneur thinks Carpenter committed the "eighth deadly sin of business" by squandering a genuine opportunity: "With more commitment and seriousness, Carpenter probably could have had an actual successful business on his hands." Before he bailed, Carpenter wrote that he had taken more than 2,000 orders at $7.99 a pop, and he estimated a profit of up to $6.50 on each one, reports CNBC. (A woman is accused of using a glitter bomb, among other things, to get back at her former boss.)