Why Is Radar's Neel Shah Selling Berries?
The Radar magazine contributor is something of a man about town, but even we were surprised to see him show up at our office, delivering the aforementioned magic berries that Hamilton ordered, like a common coke dealer. So we asked him what was up! Does the pay at Radar suck? "Nah... beats freelancing," he says. We got the rundown on his berry-selling ring:
"I'd tried the berries a while back at a party and thought they were an amusing foodie party trick, but didn't really think much more of them. And then I was visiting a friend in Palm Beach a month later, and there were actually miracle berries growing wild at the hotel he was staying at, and it sort of dawned on me that the berries were precisely the type of thing that would go over well in New York. And that not many people were selling them. So my friend and I found a sourced a grower in Florida who sends us a weekly shipment, and then we handle the distribution via a bare-bone site we set up. We can arrange either a pick-up or a delivery in Manhattan, just like your dry cleaning and/our real drug delivery service.
We don't charge shipping and handling for orders in NYC, so we're a good deal cheaper than some of the other people selling them. Of course, the whole thing kind of blew up after the Times story came out, but it'll be a while before we're the Pablo Escobar and George Jung of the fruit dealing world."
Did you guys hear that? Sounds like it actually does beat the hell out of freelancing.