Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur and Inventor: How I Secured Fifteen Patents, Started Ten Companies, and Became a Pioneer on the Internet

By William J. Tobin

The free market system is based on creative ideas: if you have one and know how to sell it, youll make money. Few people have had more ideas or generated more revenue from them than the author of this book.

Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur is a practical, fascinating tale of Bill Tobin, one man who started ten companies, invented many products, holds fifteen patents, waged and won battles against some of the largest corporations in the world and Bill is the guy who figured out how to make money during the birth of the Internet in 1994.

Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur is an eye-opening, eye-level account of what it takes to transform dreams into business realities; how to form your idea, fashion it into a workable business, protect it and manage that dream to everyones benefit; how to protect your assets and family when starting your business. Bill Tobin has been overwhelmingly successful not just once or twice Bill has created ten separate start-ups to full-fledged business smash-hits.

Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur is a hybrid book: part memoir, part tutorial and first-hand historical account of more startups than you will experience in five lifetimes. Personal stories: how Bill rose from being raised in a City Assisted Housing Project in NY City to become Entrepreneur of The Year, how Bill evolved from one idea to the next and many more are woven with common-sense Lessons Learned. The practice of living an idea and building a business is seen from the inside out, providing a path for you to follow. With his overwhelming experience in successful startups, Bill Tobin is uniquely qualified to share those insights.

Above all, this is an important book for tomorrows entrepreneurs. Its an idea-mans tale of repeated successes despite sometimes outrageous obstacles. Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur shows the path for future idea-people to follow, to forge their future based on their own creations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452077796

William J. Tobin

Bill Tobin is a salesman, innovator and idea-creator extraordinaire.  His credits encompass 15 patents ranging from computer software to videoteliconferencing. The patents include the first patent ever issued for a software product in the U.S., the Electronic Dictionary, the first method for tracking commerce on the worldwide web and Affiliate Marketing as well as the ability to send video through phone lines in variable data rates to name a few.  His 10 phenomenally successful startups span the business world and have generated tens of millions of dollars annually and have earned him the title of Entrepreneur of the Year from Inc. Magazine and one of the top 100 marketing executives in the U.S from Ad Age Magazine.  When you can get him off his boat, Bill is an in-demand speaker on business startups, management and innovation.   

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

The Early Years

Chapter Two

My First Company

Chapter Three

Next Steps

Chapter Four

No OPM

Chapter Five

Protecting Your Family

Chapter Six

Late Sixties and

Early Seventies

Chapter Seven

My Second Company

Chapter Eight

My Third Company

Chapter Nine

My Fourth Company

Chapter Ten

My Fifth Company

Chapter Eleven

My Sixth Company

Chapter Twelve

My Seventh Company

Chapter Thirteen

My Eighth Company

Chapter Fourteen

My Ninth Company

Chapter Fifteen

My Tenth Company

Chapter Sixteen

Principles

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Entrepreneur.

It is a compelling word with significance much deeper than you might imagine—a French word meaning one who undertakes some task. In today’s context, the concept of the entrepreneur carries much more important implications than one who performs a simple task. Becoming an entrepreneur means survival when the odds are not favorable, creativity in the face of adversity, hope in a time of frustration, and much more. But perhaps the most important definition of entrepreneur is the fundamental theme of this book: one who determines his or her own destiny.

What if I say that becoming an entrepreneur—a nimble, creative, adaptive visionary—might be the only way for you to fulfill your personal and professional goals? Would that get your attention? What if I share the belief that becoming an entrepreneur is as important for the kid serving fast food as it is for the middle manager hoping to move up the corporate chain? While every generation faces its own economic challenges, the only absolutely certain way to find and keep the job you want is to create it for yourself.

The simple fact is that careers are not provided to anyone anymore, despite what any number of universities or institutions or corporations may suggest. If you are going to make it, you’re going to have to make it on your own—as the entrepreneur of your own life.

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself …

True happiness is born of self-reliance.

The Laws of Manu

Why You Should Read This Book

You should read this book because I will save you time and money. It’s that simple. I have already done what a lot of people dream of doing: created my own ideas, built my own companies, and made money—a pretty good amount of it. I hold fifteen patents, which have produced gross revenue streams totaling millions of dollars.

Through this book, I will steer you in the right direction while also offering advice to help you avoid the occasional pitfall. Though I have enjoyed a good amount of formal education, I am also a street fighter, able to battle in a boardroom or pitch in an elevator with equal success. My classrooms are conference rooms and factories; my battlegrounds have been marketing departments and courtrooms. If you have an open mind and a spark of persistence, the lessons in this book will help to make you money.

You should read this book if you want to:

•   Start your own business

•   Help to start someone else’s business

•   Invent or develop a product

•   Market a product

•   Improve your concepts and ideas

•   Break out of a dead-end situation

•   Pick up tips on creativity, selling, and marketing

•   Protect your family and your wealth

•   Protect your ideas and concepts

There are many essential qualities an entrepreneur must adopt and embrace—characteristics that we will explore in this book—but one of the most fundamental traits is the ability to see what needs to be done and then doing it.

This capability might seem comically obvious, but let me assure you, it is not. This book will demonstrate any number of ways I have generated ideas, invented processes, secured patents, created companies, and made more than a bit of money by seeing and acting on opportunities that other people could not see or on which they would not take action.

It is my contention that cultivating that sort of insight and initiative is not only beneficial to you professionally and personally, but it is also the fundamental precept of free enterprise itself. By learning to see the opportunity and then taking dynamic action on it, you change your own life for the better and the lives of those around you.

This is the way I have lived, as an entrepreneur since I was twelve years old, making the conscious choice to thrive despite any number of hurdles that might have deterred achievement and success. Through this book I will share with you the journey I have already taken, the path I have already carved out of the jungle you are in. I will guide you in directions that will save you time, money, and quite a bit of head-scratching frustration.

This is the opportunity I present to you. It is up to you to see it and act on it.

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Chapter One

The Early Years

I grew up in a public housing project in New York City. There were three options for a kid like me to get out of the projects: crime, death, or education. Fortunately, my parents did what needed to be done: they drummed into my head that education was the sole option. Either I was going to use my brain, study, and move on up and get out, or I was not. It was that simple. From the first, I studied hard and well.

It is important to note that my intelligence is about average. I am good at some things and bad at others. My success didn’t come from an accident of genius or some unknown outside force; I applied what I knew to what could be done. My parents kept after me about studies, and I worked hard to understand the fundamentals.

Late in grade school, a rather tough one at that, my father got a promotion from the NYC Police Department, he was made a sergeant, which necessitated that we move out of the projects. Ironically, while the promotion forced us out of the city-assisted public housing, it did not provide the family with much more money. For practical purposes, the loss of the ability to remain in the city-assisted public housing cost more than the money we received from the raise and promotion. We ended up in a new area of very old Long Island back when that borough was farmland. The contrast from the new home to the old could hardly have been more shocking, from inner-city to green acres in a single day.

I have never considered my youth in a housing project a disadvantage in my personal or professional life. On the contrary, my many experiences growing up in a housing project sometimes provided me with advantages over my business peers. While many of my peers grew up in middle-class or privileged areas, the challenges I faced from the people and the environment of the projects served me well in my future while also providing a perspective that I value to this day.

While my future peers were facing their own challenges, early on I was confronted by circumstances that would have shocked them. Early one morning when I was in the sixth grade, I was confronted by a large bully who demanded my milk money. While this is a typical bully situation, in my case the bully stabbed me in the arm with a penknife when I refused to hand over the coins. The wound was small, but it smarted like all heck, and the lesson was huge: never give advantage or show weakness to someone who is trying to take something from you or outmaneuver you.

The next day, I waited for the bully outside a school exit I knew he would take. I smashed him several times with a pipe I had dug out of the janitor’s closet. After a few shots, he got away and we faced off, the bully swearing he would get even and hurt me. I let him know we were already even—I had been stabbed and he had been smashed—but if he wanted to come at me again, it would be fine with me. I would keep coming back with my pipe until one or the other of us had had enough.

That bully never bothered me again. The story spread through the kids in the projects: I was not someone to mess with.

In order to protect myself more effectively, I began to box for the police athletic league when I was ten years old. I continued to box as a young adult. Being proficient in this sport served me well. The lessons I learned while boxing were instrumental in developing my personality as an adult, an important concept being, when you feel you have nothing left and you are totally spent, you can always reach down within yourself and come up with enough energy to move forward and reach your goal.

Even as a kid, I developed the habit of looking for opportunities where other people might be overlooking them. The one thing that was abundant in our new neighborhood, in stark contrast from my time in the projects, was grass. We had moved to Long Island in the winter, so the opportunity was mostly hidden at first, but the sizes of the lots of the family homes were undeniable, at least to me. A young person with a bit of energy and a sense of hustle could stand to make a comparative fortune if he put his mind to it. I intended to put my mind to it.

As a new kid in the area, it was also in my interest to get out and be seen, meet people and families. It did not seem to make much sense to hole up in my room and wait for people to find me, and building my own business might prove to be an excellent way to get to know people.

That first winter, I discussed with my parents the idea of developing customers during the cold season for the upcoming summer. My mother helped me locate and then took me over to a small printing store, where I ordered my first business cards: Bill’s Maintenance Service.

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While our neighborhood was far from upscale, less than a mile away an upper-middle-class community was thriving, complete with manicured lawns and shrubbery beds, each home a business opportunity. That cold winter, I walked door-to-door, distributing my business cards and meeting people if they happened to be home. After just a few days, I had enough customers to develop a lucrative gardening business. I built solid business relationships with many local families by delivering excellent services at reasonable prices.

Kind and understanding, my mother drove me to Sears Roebuck and bought a lawn mower, edger, and tools on her Sears credit card. While my mother was enormously helpful, she also made it clear she expected every dime to be paid back when the business was on its feet. This was perhaps the only time in my business life that I gave an investor my personal guarantee. I intended to live up to the letter of our agreement, and I am happy to say, I exceeded it.

When spring came, I stacked the tools on top of the lawn mower and pushed it down the street to the first client. Each day I would repeat the process, up early and working late, doing at least four or five large lawns and the shrub beds in a single day. I worked out routes so that my travel path and use of time would be most efficient. It was hard work, but I must confess, having grown up in fields of concrete, I enjoyed it immensely.

By the end of summer, I had secured sufficient indoor projects—painting, cleaning, and repair jobs—to keep my weekends filled for the next winter. The next year, I tripled my number of current customers, purchased additional equipment, and hired several friends to help to service the accounts. In a few years, the business had grown to more than ten employees and several trucks. Had I decided to continue, I could have grown that business into an even larger concern, making a very good living along the way. But that was not my plan. I had larger ideas in mind. I eventually sold the business to a local landscaper, realizing a very respectable chunk of capital for my efforts.

LESSON LEARNED:

Anyone can start his own business if they are willing to take the steps to do so: think and act creatively, perform the background research, and devote virtually all of your personal resources and energy to the project. While you must be the driving force behind the operation, you can’t do everything yourself. You must learn to hire enthusiastic associates and delegate responsibilities to them.

After high school, while my landscaping and maintenance business was thriving, I attended a New York State junior college for two years, collecting an Associate’s Degree in Applied Sciences and adding undergraduate hours that I later applied toward a four-year degree. I had just turned eighteen years old and was driving home from one of my last classes in junior college when I decided to join the army and fulfill that obligation before I entered a major university to pursue the goal of my bachelor’s degree. It was the 1960s, and there was