The story behind our partnership with Benjamin Knox
Some of you who have stumbled upon our humble business are likely a bit confused about a rather glaring element of its value proposition: how did a couple of college kids land a partnership with Benjamin Knox, who has tens of thousands of paintings scattered across campus and the country?
The idea for our business began in Lily's living room, sitting around a coffee table post-Taco Tuesday. "What if we did a calendar?" No, no, that's lame. "Well, what about an advent calendar???" I like the holiday pull! But still, a bit lackluster. "But we could make it so that every day has a new puzzle piece, and by the end they'll have a full holiday puzzle!" I think we need to move away from the calendar idea. But wait...
"A puzzle is actually not a bad idea... Has anybody done that before?... WHY has nobody done that before?" We began discussing unique ways to imbue value into a puzzle, how this would do around the holidays, who would buy it, etc. etc. Then, boom! I was transported back several months to a warm Sunday in April, off of University Drive.
I entered the rustically creative gallery to encounter walls filled to the brim with landscapes, collages, and a whole lot of Aggie art. We began exploring several of the diploma frame offerings - one of which, I noticed, featured a print identical to a piece I owned at home. Of course, there were plenty of these prints at my house. I'd heard about Benjamin Knox more than a time or two and had inherited several of his paintings myself, now hanging from the fasteners on my otherwise bare college house's walls.
Benjamin came around the corner of the hallway to greet my dad with a hardy handshake and a contagious smile. You see, back in the late 1980s, my father and Benjamin were in the same outfit within the Corps of Cadets. One year separated their graduation dates, however. My dad is class of '91, a proud Ag who bleeds maroon through and through. Benjamin was class of '90. Those of you familiar with the original fraternity that is the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University will note that this deems Mr. Knox my dad's "pisshead". I imagine these two share some memories as a result, though perhaps not the most cheerful.
Fast forward back to that coffee table ideation session, and the cogs in my head were visibly protruding. "I gotta make a call," I said as I rushed out the door to FaceTime my beloved parents. This is where I proposed the idea of placing one of Benjamin Knox's famed paintings on a puzzle to sell to the general public, allowing people to play a part in his work and benefitting the hard workers over at OnRamp. They loved it and I was soon provided with Benjamin Knox's personal cell phone number.
I reached out to Benjamin and soon after, we spoke on the phone in the parking lot outside of the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship. Fitting! In classic business mentorship fashion, he grilled me on all the bells and whistles of our business plan - our marketing strategy, our points of leverage, supply chain questions, how we would carry on his brand. Having bought into the product idea quite deeply and 15 minutes into the interrogation, I was sweating. Finally - and quite nonchalantly - Mr. Knox expressed his willingness to allow us to use his painting and partner with him for our business. On the condition that I videotape my father performing 90 push-ups, of course - "no more, no less." My first ever business deal! I was ecstatic. After deciding on next steps, I quickly texted the group chat for one of our team's earliest celebrations.
Benjamin was under no obligation to agree to our offer. In fact, I quite expected him not to. But his generosity and willingness to listen to and support young students has created an opportunity for us to learn and grow with a business that we are all excited about! That is the story of how we landed our partnership with Benjamin Knox and his gallery. And that was the first step on the huge staircase (not all steps of which lead upward, mind you) of our business journey.
Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur or a smug parent, follow our journey as we face the smooth, the rocky, and the everything in between of starting a business!