Matthew Carpenter has finally unloaded his "huge mistake" for $85,000.
The 22-year-old Australian made headlines this month with ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, a site that does just what it says at $9.99 AUD a pop (roughly $8.11 USD). The response to the site was overwhelming -- so overwhelming that he went on Product Hunt to plead with users to stop buying his product.
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Carpenter then put the site up for sale on Flippa. After 345 bids, he settled for $85,000.
That's not a bad payday, considering Carpenter launched the site 10 days ago. Since that time it's seen 2.5 million visitors, has been mentioned on Facebook and Twitter more than 415,000 times, and got publicity on late-night talk shows.
Carpenter couldn't keep up with the demand. Within the first few hours, he says, he got 2,000 orders. Overwhelmed, he removed the ability to order the product from his site, angering fans on social media who were eager to use his services.
It's clearly a good business for someone, though: Carpenter says the cost of the glitter, plus a letter telling the recipient that he or she is a horrible person, only amounts to $2 to $4, leaving a potential profit of $5.99 to $7.99 per order.
A Flippa rep says the buyer is Peter Boychuk, an online entrepreneur who has been part of the Flippa community for the last 12 months. In a statement from Flippa, Boychuk said he plans on immediately reactivating the order form on the site and fulfilling Carpenter's 10,000 or so pending orders.