The Empty-Box Fundraising Story: Delivering Successfully Does Not Justify the Means

This story is astonishing, so I am sharing it, though I do not really recommend doing this. In one respect, it resembles what Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes did: deliver successfully and become a hero; fail and become a business fraudster. A retired member of U.S. Navy SEAL Team Three, John Jin’en, founded a company with a friend to make armored vehicles for difficult urban combat environments. They wanted to launch a second-generation vehicle but lacked money for a prototype with all the new functions. They needed investors, yet could not secure investment without showing a prototype—and lacked the money to build it. A no-win dead end? Only in the material world. For a SEAL, no such dead end exists because the mind can always win. They built a huge black box in the showroom. Asked what was inside, John said: ‘We cannot show you yet. It is our second-generation armored vehicle, currently our highest secret.’ Potential investors became intensely curious, but he refused to reveal more. Soon the partners raised all the money required, developed the vehicle, and sold every one, achieving great commercial success. Of course, the box contained nothing: no prototype, nothing at all. More precisely, it contained one thing: the second-generation vehicle in John’s mind. He saw it so clearly and believed so firmly that investors saw it too and invested in it. Advertising professionals know the trick well. They invent attractive pictures that audiences easily believe and pay for, potentially receiving nothing. The difference here is that John could fulfill expectations and deliver actual goods—and did.