Videos

Finding a Market for Surprise and Delight with a Cat Drawing

A developer by day and cat drawing guy by night, Steve Gadlin won the hearts of the crowd at Delight 2012 as the celebrity emcee of the day. Beyond the Delight stage, Steve is nationally known for his bold and unique business initiative that earned him a spot in the Shark Tank winners circle. Finding a market for surprise and delight through stick figure cat drawings, I Want to Draw a Cat for You! took off in ways no one could have expected, selling over 12,000 drawings to date.

In the video above, Steve shares how some nerve, a masquerade, and a passion for creating surprise and delight helped turn a joke into a lasting business venture with Mark Cuban.

As Steve explains, being his own company has enabled him to have the real conversations with his customers that they truly want, providing a deeper interaction than a simple drawing in the mail.

With Disney-sized aspirations and a nothing-to-lose attitude, Steve shares, he happened upon one very important discovery: Sincerity breeds delight.

About Steve

Steve is a web developer, writer, and comedian living in Chicago, Illinois. He’s the proud founder of Blewt!, creators of comedy to delight and confuse. And he wants to draw a cat for you.

Katie Del Angel +

Katie is a content strategist at ISITE Design, responsible for content marketing and social media within the agency. She oversees a mini B2B content empire of five in-house blogs, and a growing army of internal contributors. She also manages the agency website content and organizes ISITE's annual UX event in Portland, Oregon, Delight 2012. A fan of the Celtics and running on the Boston Harbor, Katie is still a Chicagoan at heart and thoroughly enjoys a good Chicago-style hot dog whenever she can.