Treats for Your Inner Cynic

June 18, 2008— -- In offices across America, posters with inspirational slogans plaster the walls, complete with slogans like "ambition," "dreams" and "hope." They seem to be so uplifting and motivational — until you read the fine print, that is. Then you learn that with ambition, "the journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly"; that dreams "are like rainbows — only idiots chase them"; and that hope "may not be warranted at this point."

"We like to say we are the brand for cynics, pessimists and the chronically unsuccessful," said Lawrence Kersten, the co-founder of Despair, Inc.

He says the "future of Despair" looks pretty good. These are boom times for the Austin, Texas-based company that deals in demotivation.

One of Despair, Inc.'s more popular slogans? "Worth: Just because you're necessary doesn't mean you're important."

"I guess a lot of people feel that way," Kersten said.

Kersten and his co-founders, twin brothers Justin and Jef Sewell, are trying to make a business out of mocking the motivational industry: the genre of posters, speakers and slogans that tries to make us work harder and feel better about our jobs and position in life.

"I would say that the fundamental wrongness of the motivational poster industry is that they just don't work. … We say motivational products don't work, but our demotivational products don't work even better. This idea that products can motivate employees to work harder is not true," Justin Sewell said.

The founders began their endeavor of "nonexcellence" 10 years ago, when they all worked for a struggling Internet start-up.

"About midway through our working life there, I ended up on the mailing list for a motivational poster catalog and it came at a really bad time, and we started flipping though it and just sort of laughing at how not a single thing that they sold was relevant to the company that we worked for, or our working experience there," Kersten said.

They left the company and started trying to sell their parody posters, T-shirts and mugs. At first they didn't have high hopes.