PurrFect Planet Diary

The diary of a $77,000,000.00 idea.  August 11, 2007

 

I met Pegi Goff at the first Tampabay area Meetup of people who wanted to share The Secret ie The Law of Attraction.  I walked up to her after the meeting and said, “I know I am supposed to meet you, but don’t know why.”  She seemed ready for that opening line and launched into how she was ready to get involved in something that really mattered.  Her first donation to Big Cat Rescue was with the White Tiger brochure and T-shirts.

 

Within days she presented me with a Webkinz plush toy that had a corresponding online game element and a $77,000,000.00 idea was born.  I had set that figure as my intention, but at the time had no idea how to achieve it.  I think this is it.

 

Webkinz launched in 2005 and as of this date claims 2 million units sold to retailers and 1 million registered users of the Webkinz World website. NPD Group reports that the product brought in more than $1 million (USD) in United States retail sales in 2006.

 

Last year, after Howie showed me an article about it in Business Week, I signed up for Second Life.  From time to time I have logged in to try and figure out how to do good with this otherwise materialistic phenomena.  Yesterday, August 11, 2007, Second Life had more than 800,000 players online who had spent $1,400,000.00 in the last 24 hours.

 

8.9 million user accounts have been created since its inception in 2003 and most of those since 2006.

 

At this writing, Pegi and I are calling our venture PurrFect Planet and she called me Friday to tell me that she had gotten a commitment for a $10,000.00 grant and possibly that much per year if this could be developed as an educational tool.

 

We are set to brainstorm this soon but here is what is coming to me from the Universe:

 

It starts with the most adorable plushy cat toys you can imagine.  The toy is small, but has such charm and detail that adults will keep it on their desks.  Teenagers will proudly carry it, because it will represent an icon that is a constant reminder of who they perceive themselves to be.  The toy will be marketed to remind the owner of what it takes to succeed.  This is why it should be a top- of- the- food- chain- predator.  A cat because of the big cat charity supported by the income and that shelters the income, in turn.

 

Buying the toy gets you into the online community.  You create and personalize your character and you have a home that you share with the plushy type that you bought.  Your home is sort of the MySpace equivalent where you show off who you are and invite friends to see it.  Players can post photos, videos and music to share with friends.  You can pay for enhancements or earn them.

 

You pay for enhancements by making donations to a charity through the game so that it can be tracked.  To be a vendor you have to be a charity or donate a substantial portion of each sale to a charity within the PurrFect Planet.  Green enhancements are encouraged by price breaks, bonuses and status.  This would encourage players to seek out wind powered home improvements over petroleum and such so as to get people thinking about what it takes to keep a planet healthy.  Status is a rating system that becomes a badge of honor with benefits.

 

You can earn money to spend in the game through the educational component.  You can travel to wildlife preserves and spend time transformed into a forest creature, native to the area of the preserve.  This will require a huge data base of information for each type of preserve.  There could be oceanic preserves, polar preserves where the ice caps are melting based upon the number of players in the game who are using products that contribute to the destruction of the ozone.  There would be the typical rain forest preserves, prairie preserves and savannahs.  Each with its own eco system to keep in balance by knowing about it, understanding it and really becoming a part of the whole process by being a creature i