ou’ve just been laid off from your job at a once mighty startup that was going to change the world. The New York Times has exposed your CEO’s fraudulent business model. Investors have freaked. The stock market is hemorrhaging. Your office keycard doesn’t work. What you do next is very important:By now, we’ve all seen enough rise-and-fall documentaries to know how this sort of thing plays out.
Corny brand merch like T-shirts and mugs suddenly become hot collectibles. It’s all profit for disgruntled employees who acquired the office swag for free, or those in the industry who picked up complimentary items at conferences., Silicon Valley Bank items hit eBay just a few days after the bank’s collapse. Coffee tumblers, blankets and cheese boards were all up for sale. The cheese board alone cost $200.
It’s a niche, but dedicated, market. One investor named Ted Aronson told the publication he had probably spent about $25,000 on financial memorabilia during his time in the field. Items like a Bernie Madoff portrait and an Enron code of ethics booklet decorate his Pennsylvania office., said she “ironically” purchased an FTX sweater to wear to a Christmas party last year. This week she also purchased an SVB hoodie for, as the Journal put it, her “growing collection of financial-disaster swag”.
Ready to make the great American tradition of failing upwards – until it all comes crashing down – a part of your brand? Here are our favorite items that honor fiascos the business world would rather forget. And yes, these prices are for real.At its peak, the game-show-on-your-phone app had $100m and 2.3 million players.