Newsletter

Bananamail · Issue #1 · October 2026

You've Got Bananamail

Welcome to the first edition of Bananamail.

By Jordan Harary

Hi, I’m Jordan, co-founder of Bid Banana.

Welcome to Bananamail— the newsletter for SMBs, written by people building one right alongside you.

A single glowing banana on an office desk, surrounded by towering gray stacks of binders labeled “generic brand,” “boring strategy” and “predictable content,” under the headline “Stand Out.”

We know what it’s like to be passionate about founding, building, and growing a small business from the ground up. Each month, we’ll share what we’re learning firsthand, along with practical strategies and tactics shaped by more than a decade of experience.

In a space as dry as government contracting, everyone's fine print starts to look the same.

So in our recent campaigns, we didn't try to blend in.

Instead, we zeroed in on our brand voice and leaned into the banana. We kept the focus on the fun without breaking the bank. What we discovered is that exploring what made us unique paid dividends in ways that aren’t always measurable.

You’ve got Bananamail

Back in March, we asked our users to tell us honestly what they thought of Bid Banana.

The idea to offer an incentive came to me from a vendor that gave attendees free swag for joining their webinars. I'd already been toying with doing something similar.

But what was there to offer our customers as a feedback incentive?

At the time, every SaaS company on earth seemed to be plugging themselves with AirPods giveaways. AirPods here, AirPods there, AirPods in every ear.

Do you know what’s funnier, more universal, and more on-brand than AirPods?

An open cardboard box of green bananas nestled in brown paper, with a handwritten card: “Thank you! From your friends at Bid Banana.”
That’s right, bananas.

A bunch of bananas from the grocery store only costs a few dollars. The box and paper cost less. This campaign wasn’t about the dollar value of the item; it was about standing out.

(And because we don't hate people, we shipped green bananas. No one wants to welcome a box of brown bananas into their home!)

One fellow startup founder, Juliana, later posted about it on her LinkedIn. As a founder who also handles marketing for her company, she appreciated the creativity of our approach:

“I thought this was brilliant by Bid Banana (which is an amazing RFP aggregator!). They sent us bananas. On brand. Pretty cheap. And a handwritten note. This wasn't something that they overthought. It connected with their customers and showed their value.”
— Juliana, F&T Labs

The campaign's success made us wonder… how else could we use our banana mascot to stand out? And could we stand out in New York City— a city full of standouts?

Bid Banana goes guerrilla

Like this…

A Bid Banana flyer taped to a Manhattan lamppost reading “New York City businesses: $42 billion is up for grabs,” with a cartoon banana holding cash and tear-off QR code tabs.
Bid Banana takes Manhattan: Banana Ben is seizing your attention. He’s also got cash money.

The people using Bid Banana are hustlers. Time and time again, they’re thinking about deadlines, portals, and PDFs that read like they were meant to be endured. And they keep rising to the challenge that every government contracting opportunity presents. As procurement experts and small business owners, my co-founder and I know exactly what that’s like.

So we leveraged our banana mascot and stood out. And as it turns out, our efforts caught the eyes of the small business owners of Manhattan:

Chart of daily mobile sessions from New York through April: a steady baseline, then a sharp spike on April 21, the day of the flyer drop.
Check that spike on April 21.

While everyone seemed to be buying ChatGPT ads, we decided to go old school. We hung up a few dozen posters with QR codes and taped them around Manhattan (a guerrilla marketing tactic that never goes out of style). That’s a 166% hike in mobile web traffic from New York, coinciding with the day of the flyer drop.

Traffic peaked at roughly 2.7x (!) its normal daily level.

So: why bother with a low-cost, high-effort marketing campaign like mailing boxes of bananas and hanging posters?

Because today, garnering attention means being attention-worthy. It means standing out.

You may not remember a year down the line which company sent you AirPods. But I doubt you'll have a difficult time remembering who sent you bananas.

What to expect from Bananamail

Standout content. Real stories. Tried and true recommendations. Probably bananas.

Our mission has always been to help small and medium-sized businesses compete for government contracts against the large corporations that monopolize the industry.

That's the promise of this newsletter. Every issue will peel back the layers on something we discovered while founding, building, and growing a small business right alongside you.

Thanks for being here. Let’s go bananas.

Jordan Harary’s signature.

Jordan Harary

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