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theatlantic:

The Marketing Genius of TacoCopter

Some companies are born great, some companies achieve greatness, and some companies drop greatness on your face — in the form of a taco.

The latter certainly applied to one of the greatest fake startups ever: TacoCopter. The prank company drew headlines with its stated plan to use “flying robots” to deliver tacos to smartphone-ordering customers. Basically, they wanted to use automated helicopters to reign deliciousness down on people. It was genius.

It was also illegal. A short brainstorm of air-dropping tacos on customers uncovers a number of drawbacks, including but not limited to: What if the tacos hit somebody else? What if somebody steals your taco from the toy helicopter? What if the copter crashes into a building? What if the FAA opts to clear the skies of Mexican delivery? But all of this was besides the point. […]

Of course, it’s hard to know if people really want what you’re building when almost nobody knows about you. It’s what Y Combinator’s Paul Graham calls the “Trough of Sorrow.”

The Trough of Sorrow is where most startups meet their demise. It’s easy to give up when nobody’s paying attention. Anything that kicks the company out of the shadows during these lean months (or years) is by definition good. Even if that means floating outlandish plans to parachute tacos down to customers.

Read more. [Image: Tacocopter]