Stanford Magazine: July/August1999

I learned a few other lessons during my two years as the king of condom key chains. One was that it’s tough to get rich quick with a single item. I learned that a markup of 150 percent doesn’t mean much when you’re only making 75 cents per item. It took a lot of key chains bought at 50 cents and sold for $1.25 just to pay the phone bill. After selling more than 50,000 pieces, I was $10,000 poorer than when I began. When my inventory dropped below 500, I took the remainder to a local advocacy group for prostitutes.