Packajoy
A box subscription service
2019 · Lenses: Websites, Fake Business, Useless Nonsense, Dumb Bits · Roles: Concept, Writing, Web Design, Development
Packajoy is a monthly box subscription service that sends you empty boxes in the mail. For the first few months it existed, I let people actually sign up. They paid me via PayPal, and I sent them empty boxes in the mail.
It turned out that buying a cardboard box and sending it via USPS costs more than $5, so I lost a couple hundred bucks mailing empty boxes around the country before shutting the service down. If I'd gotten some VC money, I truly believe I could have scaled enough to achieve profitability by 2036.
The site is still up, though! There's even a fun animated explainer video on there.
A couple years later, someone stumbled across Packajoy, which led them to an earlier incarnation of BenDeeb.com. From there, they found my ARG Join Cult, and with the help of an ARG Discord group, they solved the Culver City scavenger hunt hidden in the Cult site while continuously referring to the whole thing as "the Packajoy ARG" even though Packajoy had nothing to do with the game.