The Wild West...   During the mid-1990s, my wife and I embarked on a hobby of selling self-help legal publications and software, eventually deciding to explore the burgeoning "Internet Thing" to create something captivating. My evenings and extended weekends were consumed with experimentation and testing, as I sought to establish the right framework, wording, imagery, and a functional shopping cart. After much effort and dedication, we finally constructed our website, and one day, it unexpectedly took off, marking a turning point in our endeavor. THE MID  -  1990'S We faced some tough lessons along our journey. At an "Internet for Business Applications" class, I regretfully shared our accomplishments with my PHD instructor, who unexpectedly highlighted me to the class when it became rowdy. Many students were eager to learn how to monetize this again "Internet Thing," but some struggled to understand and expressed frustration. This experience taught us a valuable lesson moving forward, to keep our endeavors more private to avoid similar situations and protect our hard-earned knowledge. Frantic And The Not So Frantic... At home, calls came in from Venture capitalists who stated they were given funds by those who wanted to get in on the Internet where they had performed research and found our Avlimited only second to another then young book seller Amazon. I'd answer our website wasn't for sale which confounded such who said we didn't understand, (where such would be proven correct on so many levels in the years to come). It would also become obvious my wife could not handle the volume of orders coming in as major search engines had listed our site directly under a then young book seller AMAZON.COM and before a NOLO.COM. So, I hamstrung our site as to make it drop in the search engines rankings which allowed a more manageable volume of orders for my wife to handle. Our then AVlimted.com compared to a then Nolo.com: AVLIMITED.COM NOLO.COM Taken Out Unfortunately, I was taken out for a few years in 1999, (discussed next), where my wife chugged on alone. However, by 2002 a few customers began commenting that our site was more elegant then the products we sold. Thus, being taken out in 1999 along with other in-attentions led to crucial mistakes. One, of which was not finding additional suppliers as the DOS software that accompanied our books had become obsolete in regard to the new Windows 3.1 GUI operating system. Analogous Of Our Past And The Futures To Come... A couple approached my wife expressing interest in our 1956 Imperial, she firmly told them it wasn't for sale. Shortly after, another man nearby inquired about their intentions, and my wife informed him of their interest in the car. He then revealed that the man was a recently retired Charlotte developer with considerable wealth and a reputation for getting what he desired. He warned us that by saying no, we likely ignited a challenge in the man's mind, as he would probably toss and turn, determined to find a way to acquire that car from us. Next: The Politicized

@ Copyright 2005 -2018