Pizza for Ice Cream (College)
1993  College  pizza place across from Dairy Queen
Master Registry #14 | Cost+20% Origin Story
Setting: College, assistant manager at a pizza place across the parking lot from a Dairy Queen
“I was the assistant manager at a pizza place in college across the parking lot from a Dairy Queen. I knew the cost of our pizzas was about 10% of what we charged customers, and I really like ice cream, and so did the 12 employees I was in charge of. So I called up Dairy Queen, and told them who I was and asked if they would be interested in pizza for dinner in exchange for ice cream for dessert. I made a deal with their manager that we would provide X pizzas for Y ice cream, since their manager knew how much the ice cream cost. Then me and the other manager paid the supply costs and treated both our crews for each of our cost of pennies on the dollar, with the significant savings, AND the variety of food benefit to each party.”
The Math:
- $10 retail pizza = ~$1 cost to make
- $10 retail ice cream = ~$1 cost to make
- Trade at cost: Both sides get 10x value
- No money changes hands  just margin
Key Lesson: When you trade at cost instead of retail, everyone wins massively. The margin is where the magic is.
Connection to Platform: This is the direct ancestor of Cost+20%. What worked between two parking lot neighbors scales to a global network of margin-based exchange.
Best Used For: Explaining Cost+20%, origin of economic thinking, cooperative commerce philosophy