Freemium on a Placemat

Before I knew what "freemium" meant, I was already selling it. Just on a placemat.

I was 19 or 20, living alone in a tiny apartment near Cal Poly, waiting out community college until I could transfer in. Lonely stretch. I worked at Kinko's, watched a lot of Miami Vice reruns, and filled the rest of my time with every odd hustle I could think of: typing papers for other students, freelance graphic design, flipping VW bugs, even a short-lived carpet shampoo business (don't ask how that one went).

The best of the bunch was one a friend and I called Treasure Mat. We sold ad space to local businesses. I designed the ads myself, on whatever passed for design software in the early '90s, which is a nice way of saying they were rough. We printed them onto free 11x17 paper placemats and gave them to local restaurants, who set them under every diner waiting on their food.

The restaurant got a free placemat. The advertiser got a captive audience with nothing to do but stare at their table setting. We got paid by the businesses buying the ad space, not the restaurant or the diner actually using the product.

I didn't understand the real principle at the time: somebody always pays, just maybe not the person holding the product. I just needed rent money and a friend dumb enough to design ugly ads with me.

And here we are, decades later, still inside the same model. This post is the placemat. So is the next one in your feed. LinkedIn's just better at graphic design than I was in 1993, and it's put some nicer looking ads around here somewhere.

What's the placemat in your business, the free thing quietly carrying somebody else's ad?