This guy spent $18,000 to win a Jet contest - now he's a multimillionaire after its sale to Walmart
Eric Martin
The 29-year-old marketer from York, Pennsylvania just became a millionaire thanks to a smart investment in Jet.com, which Walmart is buying for more than $3 billion.
Early last year, Martin competed in Jet's "Insiders" referral program, ultimately spending about $18,000 to cinch himself the top prize of 100,000 shares of common stock.
Today, that investment paid off big-time. Although both Martin and Jet both declined to tell us how much he'll be making, Fusion reported when he first got his stake that it could be between $10 and $20 million.
"I'm really excited," Martin tells Business Insider. "I'm taking time to process it. I haven't really had a chance to really feel what it means yet. But I'm very, very happy."
Martin says that he has no big celebration plans today, besides perhaps buying some snow crab legs to eat with his family for dinner. He doesn't know yet what he'll do with the money long-term. either, but says he's already received a couple of texts joking that he'll need to get a new security system.
"I've told my wife in the past that someday we'll go to Thailand again, because she grew up there, so now that will definitely happen eventually," he says. "Our kids are one and three right now, so it's kind of awkward timing. Other than that, I'll have to think about it."
Martin also recently launched a startup called IdeaDash, which helps people crowdfund ideas that they personally don't want to work on. He's excited to keep hustling away on that.
"I feel so fortunate," he says. "It has really worked out."
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
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