Late nights at the office. Eating ramen. Relentless A/B testing. These are the things you think of when you imagine working for a startup. Running from Moscone Center security while pushing heavy machinery? Not so much. Yet that’s exactly what happened to Rich, Charlie and I yesterday (For background, check out this article from our friends at TechCrunch).
We knew there was underlying resentment towards PayPal’s policies on freezing accounts, as we’ve heard countless horror stories first-hand from many of our new customers. There’s no better feeling than when we can provide our customers with a service that’s simple and empowering…except when we do so while freeing them from a solution that is cumbersome and frustrating.
Did we get in a little trouble? Eh, sort of. It was absolutely worth it, though. Thanks to all of you for your tweets, Facebook messages, and e-mails. We’re glad you liked our prank.
Many of you have asked to see pictures and videos of our stunt. We’re happy to give you a few below.
Picking up our truck. Yes, it’s a little bit bigger than what we probably needed. But sometimes it’s entirely necessary to kill a spider with a sledgehammer. We figured better too big than too small.
We bought three 300-pound blocks of ice from a local vendor, and had them delivered to WePay HQ in Palo Alto the night before. Even though we only needed two blocks, we got three. Just in case we accidentally smashed one. Most of us left our winter gloves back East, and moving heavy blocks of ice can be both slippery and numbing.
Once we got one of the blocks on its side, we laid the money and lettering on top (guiding folks towards a landing page, UnfreezeYourMoney.com). Slowly, we then lowered another block on top, and tied them together overnight so that they could melt together.
It was pure luck that the weather in Palo Alto got down to the 40′s that night. The ice melted just enough to fuse the two blocks together, but not enough to leak out any of the money or lettering.
Sadly, we didn’t take video of the trickiest part of the ordeal — lowering a 600 pound block of ice off of a truck that’s 5 feet off the ground. It took about a half hour, but we (somehow) succeeded. Frozen water is deceptively heavy, so if you see Rich, Charlie, or myself hobbling around like Patrick Ewing: The Later Years over the next couple of days…you’ll know why.
The Drop. You’ll notice the video cuts out just as I turn to see a security guard approaching Rich and I. Sadly, we do not have COPS-style video of the chase. We know, we know.
The security guard that gave chase was quick. The fastest I’ve ever seen a man run while in a suit. Seriously. Lightning fast. It was immediately clear we’d be caught if the chase continued, so we decided to stop and protect ourselves. We would not cede any ground, nor risk any vandalism to our frigid work of art. One passerby was nice enough to snap a picture of us holding our ground. I will include it here, totally unedited, for your viewing pleasure.
Eventually, we agreed to keep our protest moving. We have a developer community ourselves, and didn’t want to interfere with engineers getting into the conference hall. So we propped the ice blocks back on the forklift and kept walking along the block, passing out WePay cards to people walking by. We had to let the people know there was a better way to collect money.
The time finally came for us to leave. Rather than let our art fall into the wrong hands, we scuttled our sculpture. After giving away all of the money inside, we climbed back in our truck and headed back to the valley.
Props on the Patrick Ewing reference.
Thanks, Frank. We’re almost fully healed (finally). That thing was heavy.
Awesome. Where were the aviator sunglasses?
that…..is…..AWESOME!
frozen water is deceptively heavy?? LOL …actually, it weighs just as much as unfrozen water. It’s just harder and colder. There is no deception involved.
Next time you need video, pls. holler. very creative. loved it. hi5 from SF
Great stunt.. hopefully it attracts more customers! You guys deserve it.
If I may.. The landing page you guys created seems sort of amateurish and may appear scary upon initial presentation to ‘core’ paypal users (specifically the alert icon). If you intend to reuse the domain for other campaigns (and I suggest you do.. it’s good), then maybe make it a little more user-friendly.. sort of like the main site?
Oh.. and boo on using Mel Gibson.
I got a kick out of the prank, we even went outside after the TechCrunch story to see if we could find you guys… but all we found were the broken remnants of the ice. The thing I’m wondering is whether you’re company, as it grows, is going to face the same fraud issues and other stuff that has caused PayPal to create policies for automatically freezing accounts. I’m not saying they’re executing as well as they could, but how are you going to solve these challenges differently?
CLAPPING!!!! Never heard of you guys before but this was GENIUS! I hope this brings u many customers. I don’t use paypal because I don’t have a need for it, however, should I need something of that nature, I’m using you guys!
Keep the momentum! we’ll be expecting everything to be as crazy as this!
oh and I second Kefs…”boo on using Mel Gibson”.
@Danielle:
Good question. It’s something we’re totally mindful of. Obviously as we grow, we’re going to run into the same issues.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with PayPal doing all they can to combat fraud, money laundering, and protecting their customers from being taken advantage of. What people have a problem with is the lack of communication and care that is shown by PayPal throughout the process. No phone number to call on their website, no personal touch, and minimal communication at best. People feel like their money is no longer their own, and that they have no control over the process. That’s a terrible way to feel when it’s your money (or worse, a non-profit’s money).
If you have an issue with anything on WePay, you can livechat, e-mail us, or call us at the office. No matter what, you’ll hear back from a real person who will explain the issue to you and help you take steps to resolve it.
We believe that by prioritizing customer service early on, it will become the focal point of our culture when we’re a large company. Look at Zappos. They’re an inspiration to us. They’re smart enough to realize that taking care of their customers is the biggest piece of their business, and we’ve learned a lot by watching them.
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@Kyle – awesome, I’m glad that’s the angle you’ve taken, I think it will be a successful one. Looking forward to encouraging software developers on our platform to try out WePay
That’s crazy funny!! I agree that’s it’s the complete lack of communication that’s the problem, why oh why would u operate your business that way?? You have froze my money and u won’t talk to me and explain why!! Crazy !!!
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I hate paypal and google. they see themselves as internet gods and can suspended anyones account. Thanks guys for standing up
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