Markeliopia
26-11-2007, 23:42
http://potw.news.yahoo.com/
People of the WebRolling in cash
All Linda Katz had to do was step outside of her house to make thousands on the Internet. Now the Midwestern entrepreneur is building a business selling a piece of the old west online: tumbleweeds.
By KEVIN SITES, TUE NOV 20, 3:54 PM PST
Linda started her online business, the Prairie Tumbleweed Farm, as a joke. It was 1994 and she wanted to teach herself how to design a website. Since she lived on the prairie in southwest Kansas, where rolling tumbleweeds are sometimes the only dynamic feature of an endless flat horizon, she invented a farm that sold tumbleweeds, listing prices at $15 for a small one, $20 for a medium and $25 for large.
Linda Katz roams the prairie in southwest Kansas for tumbleweeds.
Lucky for her, some people didn’t get the joke. People emailed the site wanting to buy them. But even then Linda doubted she would be able to spin this straw into gold. “When I got an order I was just amazed,” she says, sitting on the porch of her home in Garden City, Kansas. “And each order I got, I thought it would probably be the last order. I remember thinking they would probably get them and send them back immediately as soon as they find out what they are.”
A tumbleweed barrels down the highway in Garden City, KS.
But that didn't happen. In fact, the orders just kept coming -- an average of 15 per week. Though she’s coy about her annual income from tumbleweed wrangling, she says it is over $40,000 a year. Not bad for a bunch of dead, dried-up weeds. Who buys them? Well, says Katz, rocket scientists, for one. NASA purchased tumbleweeds when they were designing their Mars Tumbleweed rover. “And if you go to their site on the NASA site to the tumbleweed rover, and you go to their links, they say that they only buy their tumbleweeds from Prairie Tumbleweed Farm,” Katz says proudly.
Linda Katz takes orders for tumbleweeds in her Kansas home.
Hollywood has also come calling. Katz’s tumbleweeds have appeared in films like Johnny Depp’s “Neverland.” And she has supplied tumbleweeds to the big purple dinosaur kid’s show, “Barney.”
Linda Katz shows off a large tumbleweed near her home.
Katz says people usually use her tumbleweeds to recreate the look and feel of the old west for theme parties. But some customers tell her they buy tumbleweeds to remind them of the home on the prairie they left long ago.
http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/us/news/editorial/4/f2/4f2d8dad20de07637b8fd1a2b949bb95.jpeg
What do you think is the next big product?
People of the WebRolling in cash
All Linda Katz had to do was step outside of her house to make thousands on the Internet. Now the Midwestern entrepreneur is building a business selling a piece of the old west online: tumbleweeds.
By KEVIN SITES, TUE NOV 20, 3:54 PM PST
Linda started her online business, the Prairie Tumbleweed Farm, as a joke. It was 1994 and she wanted to teach herself how to design a website. Since she lived on the prairie in southwest Kansas, where rolling tumbleweeds are sometimes the only dynamic feature of an endless flat horizon, she invented a farm that sold tumbleweeds, listing prices at $15 for a small one, $20 for a medium and $25 for large.
Linda Katz roams the prairie in southwest Kansas for tumbleweeds.
Lucky for her, some people didn’t get the joke. People emailed the site wanting to buy them. But even then Linda doubted she would be able to spin this straw into gold. “When I got an order I was just amazed,” she says, sitting on the porch of her home in Garden City, Kansas. “And each order I got, I thought it would probably be the last order. I remember thinking they would probably get them and send them back immediately as soon as they find out what they are.”
A tumbleweed barrels down the highway in Garden City, KS.
But that didn't happen. In fact, the orders just kept coming -- an average of 15 per week. Though she’s coy about her annual income from tumbleweed wrangling, she says it is over $40,000 a year. Not bad for a bunch of dead, dried-up weeds. Who buys them? Well, says Katz, rocket scientists, for one. NASA purchased tumbleweeds when they were designing their Mars Tumbleweed rover. “And if you go to their site on the NASA site to the tumbleweed rover, and you go to their links, they say that they only buy their tumbleweeds from Prairie Tumbleweed Farm,” Katz says proudly.
Linda Katz takes orders for tumbleweeds in her Kansas home.
Hollywood has also come calling. Katz’s tumbleweeds have appeared in films like Johnny Depp’s “Neverland.” And she has supplied tumbleweeds to the big purple dinosaur kid’s show, “Barney.”
Linda Katz shows off a large tumbleweed near her home.
Katz says people usually use her tumbleweeds to recreate the look and feel of the old west for theme parties. But some customers tell her they buy tumbleweeds to remind them of the home on the prairie they left long ago.
http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/us/news/editorial/4/f2/4f2d8dad20de07637b8fd1a2b949bb95.jpeg
What do you think is the next big product?