Celebrity endorsements

Is it possible to get a celebrity to endorse your start-up without upfront compensation and without guarantee of future compensation? I am not talking about doing any sort of work. I'm talking about only a written consent to support the product that I could use when I speak with potential investors. Something that says "I like the product and if it is ever sold, I will publicly support it in return for the royalty", but take nothing upfront. Or is this not possible?

By the way, I wrote an email to a contact for one celebrity and never heard back. Wondering if they ever got the email and are not interested, or they never got it. Should I try to contact them again?

EDIT: Please, don't reply to me about how ineffective endorsements are. The point is not PR to the masses at this moment. The point is finding early customers who ARE celebrities.

Of course it's possible. It takes excellent salesmanship.

But sending an e-mail once is not going to do the trick. You need to build a relationship, think like the celebrity you are trying to convince, and have a unique and compelling story for them. What's in it for them? Does your product fit their image? How other endorsement offers are they getting? Why should they pick yours? Once you have amazingly credible answers to those questions, then you'll succeed.

Possible. Yes.
Likely. No.
Helpful at your current state of business development -- not likely.

I am sure there is a joke in this someone -- "like is a celebrity willing to endorse a produce before it is ever sold a celebrity any one will listen to?"

Celebrity driven marketing is often very helpful. Many celebrities support their lifestyles by selling their name and its attachment to a product. This is their business, and is done through their agents.

Even philanthropic activity is coordinated through their agents.
If you are going to invest time is the possibly although highly unlikely -- you need to be contacting agents.

This question, in one form or another, pops up here all the time. "I need to contact the top CEOs of all Fortune 500 Companies", or in your case- I need to contact celebrities".

First the bad news. When you get to be in charge of a big company, or you become famous the first thing you do is isolate yourself so that millions of random people can not contact you. When someone wins the lottery, they get thousands of pleas for money. Celebrities get tens of thousands of requests. There is not enough time in the day for them to even read these requests. Your chance of contacting a celebrity without an introductions from someone who knows them is near zero. A business proposal to their agent also has a near zero possibility of getting through.

Now the really bad news. Why do you think an endorsement by a celebrity would help your start up? Unless there is some direct tie in between your celebrity and your product and this endorsement will be widely publicised, the effect will probably be null. So without a viral-like effect (which you can not predict) the possibility of this working is very slight.