Kurumi Fukushima
No need to fly to Massachusetts to see the leaves turning this year. An entrepreneur wants to sell you a hand-curated envelope of autumn foliage instead.
A day-old start-up, ShipFoliage.com, offers to send a mix of red, yellow, and orange-colored leaves right to customers' doorsteps. Bostonian Kyle Waring, who carefully selects the leaves, then preserves them, started the business.
Each bundle includes three leaves, in a mix of colors, for $19.99 plus shipping. He says the site booked 50 orders in the first 20 hours online.
Waring told CNBC that production is harder than it seems. He goes hiking to find "perfect" leaves that fell naturally, looking for whole leaves and consistent color schemes.
On a typical hike, Waring would collect 200 leaves, but only 20 to 30 would make the cut for customers.
"The preservation process is pretty standard using glycerin," Waring explained. "I'd say the leaves will last five years, but I don't really know since I've only started making them this year."
Although Waring is a full-time product manager at an advertising firm, the 27-year-old makes time to be an entrepreneur — or at least a guy who can turn a joke into a business without any help from investors.
This is not Waring's first seasonal business to rely on mother nature.
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He says he first turned a profit last winter selling more than 700 pounds of Boston snow with an endeavor called ShipSnow, Yo!
He says the snow job grossed five figures last year, and he's already gearing up to ship snow in packages of 12 or 22 pounds this winter.
What's next? Waring said he's working on some service-oriented projects.
The only thing that's for sure is shipping flowers for spring is too ordinary — definitely not Waring's style.
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— By CNBC's Kurumi Fukushima, follow her @RumiCNBC