Last month, Liquid Death asked people to donate their pee to cool down AI data centers. Then they sold an $18 jar to collect it in.
It sold out 😂
But that’s not why I’m writing about it.
AI slop is flooding the internet, so marketing is moving offline → to real objects you can hold in your hands. It’s also why a physical gift is the #1 best way I know to get the attention of someone who ignores your emails.
The best outbound campaign I’ve seen 🧠
It’s from Brex, back when it had about 30 employees and no revenue:
🍾 They sent a bottle of champagne to 300 founders who had just raised money.
💌 Each bottle came with a handwritten note from the CEO that only said “congrats on the raise”.
🙋🏻♂️ After it arrived, the CEO emailed and asked for a demo.
Sam Blond, who ran sales, posted the result:
225 of the 300 took a demo!
Timing did a lot of the work: founders who just raised money need a company card, and that’s exactly what Brex sold.
The marketing idea 💡
Send the people you want as customers a gift that’s about *them* and wait until it arrives before you ask for a demo.
It works best right after a big win (Brex picked founders who had just raised). Delve, a compliance startup, did the same with custom doormats in 2025, and got $500K in pipeline in one day for $6K.
Your cheat sheet (13 gift ideas to steal) 📋
It took me years of shipping boxes at Wiz to figure out which ones get the meeting.
You get it in 3 minutes :)
In this article:
📦 10 physical gifts that ALWAYS get you the meeting based on my experience, with examples that worked (from Ramp, ElevenLabs, Wiz, etc) and the cheap version you can copy (from $10)
🍿 The pop culture trick: my easy formula to find a famous tagline and the matching gift that fit your product
💌 The exact email I send to get a stranger’s address
💻 3 virtual gifts for faster delivery
💰 What to send existing customers to make them share you online and renew (ServiceNow, Cursor, OpenAI all do one)
Here’s the full playbook: