Linda Katz sells tumbleweeds. You read well. Tumbleweeds. Dry, dead, brown tumbleweeds.
Linda sells tumbleweeds online and sells a lot. Last year alone he sold more than $ 40,000 worth of tumbleweeds, all from the comfort of his rural Kansas home. Who the hell buys tumbleweeds?
Ralph Lauren, for example. And Ceramic Barn. Both companies have used Linda’s tumbleweeds in store windows. A couple of major Hollywood studios get their tumbleweeds from Linda Katz. Miramax released their tumbleweeds alongside Johnny Depp in “Finding Neverland.” They have also appeared on “Barney & Friends”.
NASA is a huge fan. In fact, the federal government of the United States is its main customer. When they were designing and testing their “Tumbleweed Rover”, NASA purchased all of their tumbleweeds exclusively from Linda Katz.
It has clients in Paris, Dubai and Japan. Selling tumbleweeds to an international clientele and making enough money to support herself and her family is an incredible achievement. But it’s not the most incredible part of Linda’s story. The really amazing thing about Linda’s success is that it happened completely by accident! Linda never planned to become the world’s largest tumbleweed supplier. It was a coincidence!
Like many people, Linda understood the importance and power of the Internet. At first, she saw it as an exciting way to stay in touch with loved ones and wanted to create a “family website.” So Linda took a class to learn how to design websites. As part of an assignment, he created a mock website for a fantasy business called “Prairie Tumbleweed Farms”, where he offered “Small, Medium, and Large Tumbleweeds.” It was a fantasy business that was supposed to help her learn a new skill. He created a web page for his fantasy farm, posted some photos of tumbleweeds rolling in his front yard, wrote some mock product descriptions, and set up an online shopping cart to process credit cards. It was all just for fun … until he started getting orders. Many orders! An average of around 15 orders per week to start.
Now, 14 years later, Linda’s online business generates more annual income than the average nine-to-five worker. He never leaves home and his store is open 24 hours a day. Anyone in the world can browse your inventory and place an order. Scientists, horticulturists, NASA engineers, and Wild West enthusiasts can just point and click. The money they spend is deposited directly into their bank account. Every time an order comes in through your website, you walk out your front door, grab a large dried plant, stuff it into a box, and wait for the UPS truck to arrive. (They come directly to your house to pick up the packages).
Today, Prairie Tumbleweed Farms employs many of Linda’s relatives, who share in the profits. And the whole remarkable thing was completely unintentional.
If Linda Katz can sell $ 40,000 worth of dead, dry, crisp brown tumbleweeds strictly by accident, imagine what she could sell if she really tried.