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A cocktail napkin from Walker's Wagon Wheel circa late 1980s.
It is designed so that a prospective entrepreneur need only
complete the check boxes in order to have a business plan
ready to present to a venture capitalist for funding.
The napkin designer/entrepreneur Bob Zeidman tells the following
story about its creation. "In 1986 I created the Silicon
Valley Napkin and began marketing and selling it. The printer
required minimum print runs in the thousands, so I had boxes
stacked to the ceiling in the kitchen of my one-bedroom apartment.
By 1990, the napkin had run its course, and I still had boxes
left. I approached The Garage, the precursor to the Tech Museum,
to make a napkin donation. They were excited to have the napkins
at their invitation-only, kickoff donor event, and I was glad
to supply them.
"Afterwards, I thought maybe I could get my girlfriend and
myself invited to this gala event and impress her by hobnobbing
with the Silicon Valley bigwigs. The Garage invited us, and
we mingled with, among others, Andy Grove, Ed Zschau, and
Margaret Wozniak (filling in for her son Steve who couldn't
make it at the last minute). Sitting at the table I asked
the man on my right what he did for a living. He waved his
arms around his head, "embracing" the room, and
told me his company had designed the museum's interior space.
Cool! I turned to the man on my left and asked him what he
did for a living. He was the founder and CEO of a biotech
firm in Berkeley. Wow! They both asked me what I did and,
a little sheepishly, I picked up a napkin, proclaimed that
I had supplied the napkins for tonight's event, and wiped
the béarnaise sauce from my mouth.
"As a footnote, my girlfriend at the time is now my wife.
I guess she was sufficiently impressed."
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