Jacksonville-based entrepreneur Jason Sadler has come up with an ingenious way to raise some money- he has offered to legally change his last name for the whole of 2013 to the name of the company who offers hims the most money. The online auction ended yesterday, and starting January 1st, Sadler will be known as Jason HeadsetsDotCom.
The soon-to-be-called Jason HeadsetsDotCom is known for his weird ideas of making money. His original business, IWearYourShirt.com, was launched in 2009 and required Sadler to wear a sponsored T-shirt featuring a company’s logo for a full day or an entire week, for a generous fee, of course. During the first year since the company’s inception, Jason wore a different T-shirt every day, and leveraged the power of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to get the word out about his clients. “I wore a different T-shirt for 800 days straight. No day off,” he told CNN Money. “I’d make online videos wearing the T-shirts, just going about my daily life.” He also tweeted about the brands, posted about them on Facebook and made a one-hour live video show on Ustream, where he talked about clients. Believe it or not, by 2011, Sadler had hired five people and was earning $250,000 a year in revenue, promoting important companies like Starbucks, Nissan or Zappos. How’s that for an original way of making serious dough?
But his latest idea is even crazier. In need of funds to back his startup, Jason Sadler decided to auction off his last name for 2013 to the highest bidder. He organized an online auction on BuyMyLastName.com and invited brands to take advantage of this unique promotion opportunity. He will legally change his name to the name of the winning brand, for the whole year 2013, meaning it will show up on his driver’s license, passport and other forms of ID, not to mention his social media profiles. “Tons of people have told me I’m an idiot for trying to sell my last name,” Sadler says. “I think I’m willing to push the envelope further than most and willing to see it through. More companies could benefit from doing the same, instead of adding to the noise.” he also mentioned that before he decided on this unusual business plan, he considered even wackier ideas: “I thought about doing IWearYourHat, IWearYourPants, etc. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, it felt like a really stupid idea.”
The auction for Jason Sadler’s name ended on December 12, and starting January 1st 2013, he will be known as Jason HeadsetsDotCom. The price Headsets.com paid for this crazy advertising opportunity? $45,500. PawnUp.com, JLabAudio, WiggityBangGames and LewisHowes.com, in that exact order, were the runners up in Sadler’s online auction. In order to avoid sporting a name he wasn’t comfortable with, the young Florida entrepreneur consulted a lawyer and put some restrictions in place – no pornographic name, religious names, political names allowed.
Regardless of what you may think about Jason’s idea, you have to admit it’s better than just tattooing website names on your face and body for money.
Source: AdWeek
