Rags to Riches Part 1

One of my products was the famous Ant Farm. It’s a toy for children to watch ants work underground.

What made the Ant Farm sell, was that no matter where you bought a Farm in the United States, inside the Farm was a coupon. And you’d mail the coupon to us and we’d ship you 15 live ants. I remember the first day I came out with the Farm, I needed a million ants a week. I didn’t know where to get them.

“I asked him, “how do I know there’s 1,822 ants in the bottle? And, he dumped them on my desk, and said, “Count Em.”

We put an ad in the paper that said we were going to buy ants for a penny a piece. It was the biggest mistake I ever made, because the next day I came into the office and there must have been 400 people on the sidewalk with whiskey bottles and vinegar jugs full of ants. So I began buying them all morning. Around 2 o’clock a disgruntled individual walked into my office, very angry ... he’d been out in the sun for two hours, his ants were all wilted. He put a big bottle on my desk, He said, “Give me $18.22.” And I asked him, “how do I know there’s 1,822 ants in the bottle? And, he dumped them on my desk, and said, “Count Em.”

When we first came out with the toy Ant Farm, I was in New York on business, when I got a call from the Tonight show. They had a last minute cancellation and wanted to know if I could bring an Ant Farm and appear as a guest on their Show.

Of course I anxiously agreed to come to the TV studio the next day, when I realized that I didn’t have any live ants with me, to demonstrate the Ant Farm. After digging in the frozen dirt of Central Park with a knife and spoon from my hotel I returned to my room empty handed. Then, I remembered that we had the world’s biggest Ant Farm at the World’s Fair in New York.

Since time was of the essence, I called a helicopter service and asked them how much they wanted to bring a hundred ants to my hotel. The man I spoke to thought it was a crank call and he hung up on me. Finally, when I convinced him I was for real, He told me it would cost $300. I said “We only pay a penny a piece for them in California.” He said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring you three hundred ants for the same price.”

That afternoon, I ran over to the Pan Am building where the helicopter landed. And, I spent 30 minutes on national TV, showing America our new Ant Farm.

Excerpted from Rags to Riches by Self-made Multi-Millionaire E. Joseph Cossman.
Visit www.cossman.com