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Half.com

where ISBNs were listed to test demand

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’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’261
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In the moments

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Story

$300 of textbook orders overnight sparked Better World Books

A roommate plugged old textbook ISBNs into Half.com and came back the next day with $300 of orders. That accidental signal kicked off a scramble to collect and resell textbooks that became a $70M company.

And so he diligently went off, more diligently than me, and plugged in all the ISBN numbers and came back the next day and was like, "Dude, I just got $300 of orders for these random textbooks that the bookstore wasn't buying." And so we were like, "Whoa, that's something."
EP 25 · 6:29 · XAVIER HELGESEN
Read at 6:29
mfmindex.com№ 0025-389