📂 Dropping 600 pounds of ice in front of your competitor's conference doors

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What I'm about to tell you is one of the most genius displays of guerilla marketing that I have ever seen.

Let's set the scene here...

You're a web developer back in 2010 heading to one of the biggest tech conferences in the bay area.

It's the first day of PayPal's developer conference.

Wake up. Put on your startup's branded tee shirt. Make one of the first Uber requests for a ride in San Francisco. Get dropped off at Moscone Center. Walk up to the entrance stairs. Look down...

...there's a 600 pound block of ice with money inside?

You read: "PAYPAL FREEZES YOUR ACCOUNTS" and then at the bottom "UNFREEZE YOUR MONEY."

All of a sudden, you hear some commotion. There's yelling and the sound of metal clanging and wheels rattling across the sidewalk.

It's a chase!

A security guard is running after a man frantically wheeling a pallet mover behind him, trying to escape.

Eventually, the security guard catches up, snatches the pallet mover, walks back to the entrance, and wheels the giant ice block away from the building. After a brief chat with the security guard and the stuntman, it's then wheeled around outside, keeping a bit of distance from the building entrance.

This is the story of how WePay co-founder Rich Aberman made a lasting impression that changed the company's trajectory forever.

See, if you were a PayPal developer back then, you might have been one of many to get your account frozen by PayPal for some obscure reason — your own money held hostage for sometimes weeks until PayPal decided to release their chokehold and allow you to continue with business.

It was immensely frustrating, and a story that felt all-too-common at the time.

So when PayPal held it's developer conference, the WePay team knew they had to find a way to leverage that pain into publicity for their competing product.

Here's the press coverage they got from TechCrunch: WePay drops 600 pounds of ice in front of PayPal conference, hilarity ensues​

Here's the blog post that the WePay team wrote about it: Icing PayPal: How We Did It (had to dig it out of the old Wayback Machine — you're welcome!)

Thanks to some inside intel, I was able to gather that this stunt did indeed put WePay on the map and began a flood of sign ups.

Pretty nuts, right?

—Corey

p.s. I'll be running a Black Friday / Cyber Monday deal for the Swipe Files membership just for the first 50 people to take advantage of it. Keep your eyes peeled 👀

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