The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions (7 page)

The business continued to grow, but I wanted more. I wanted to get bigger faster, so I did what anyone in my position would do: I began to look around for investors.

Toward that end, I found myself up at a conference in Santa Clara. It had been set up by TiE, an organization established by and for Indian entrepreneurs. (The letters stand for The Indus Entrepreneurs.) I made only one contact in the course of that day, with an Indian gentleman in his mid-forties, but it sounded promising. He agreed to meet with me the following week, at his home in Atherton.

On the appointed day, my brother drove me out to Atherton, undoubtedly one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country. The guy lived in a mansion behind gates. A housekeeper met us at the front door and guided us through the palatial foyer, to the library, where he was waiting for us. I introduced my brother as my business partner, and the man nodded and
offered us a drink, which we declined. We then sat across from each other and I began my pitch, telling him a little about Click Agents, which I assured him was on the brink of greatness. He listened without much interest, and I could see his eyes beginning to glaze over. When I paused to take a breath, he started talking about himself and his own accomplishments. The guy was in the semi-conductor business, so I’m not sure he even understood what I was doing, but it didn’t really matter: I got the sense that I was there only so he could brag about his phenomenal success.

After the meeting, as my brother and I were driving away, I turned to him and said, “Well, that sure went great.”

“It was interesting, anyway,” he said.

“I just learned another lesson: Don’t expect anyone to help you.”

“Well, certainly not that guy. He just wanted to talk about himself.”

“At least it wasn’t a complete waste of time,” I said.

“How’s that?”

“If he can do it, I can do it.”

Days later, I put that fiasco behind me and decided to keep looking for investors. If people put money into your company, they’re saying they believe in you and that they think you’re going to succeed, and that’s a good thing. So I
generated a number of press releases, managed to set up a few meetings, and went off to try to sell myself.

Again, the press releases were not that hard to figure out. I went back to the Internet, that wonderful font of information (and misinformation), and studied a number of press releases. It was a matter of filling in the blanks but doing it creatively. In some ways, it was a shot in the dark, but there are times when that’s all it takes. The trick is to give that shot as much direction as possible, and that comes from having information. The more information you have, the more likely you are to hit your target. To paraphrase the Rolling Stones, You’re not always going to know exactly what you’re doing, but if you try sometimes, and do the legwork, you might get what you need.

Traditionally, these introductory meetings start with the investors telling you a little bit about themselves and about some of their more successful ventures, and when they’re done they cede the floor, and it’s your turn to wow them. I had no history, of course—I was still a teenager—so I would start by telling them a little about Click Agents and about how well we were doing. Invariably, however, one of these people would interrupt and ask me to back up, to tell them about my prior experience.

“Before Click Agents?” I’d say, wary.

“Yes.”

“Well, nothing really. I dropped out.”

“Of college.”

“No. High school.”

“High school?”

“I’m in an accelerated college program now,” I said.

At that point, I could see I was losing them—which is probably a good argument for staying in school—and things would generally wind down fairly precipitously. But on at least two occasions there was genuine interest, and it looked as if a deal was a definite possibility. The more I thought about their interest, however, the more it worried me. I was young and inexperienced, and
different looking
, and I suspected that the investors would probably try to replace me. Venture capitalists look for a set persona in a CEO: It’s usually a middle-aged, Ivy League–educated, all-American guy, something I was definitely
not
. And while venture capitalists certainly do a lot of good things, there’s always the risk that they’ll take control. By accepting their investment, you are giving them not only a substantial chunk of the company but the power to make changes. If you’re not careful, somebody’s golfing buddy might end up taking your job. Remember: They are not investing in your company because they like you or because they are hoping to make the world a better place; they are doing it because they hope to make a lot
of money. If you understand that, you might think twice about getting into bed with them. And that’s what I did: I decided that—for the time being, anyway—I’d push forward on my own.

So I got back to work, alone, and the business grew, and before long I was making real money. I began to help with the family finances, unusual for a teenager, certainly, but obviously the right thing to do. I’d pick up the tab for the groceries. Or pay for the extra toppings on pizza night. Or spring for a new refrigerator. But I didn’t go crazy. I was a first-time businessman. I knew there would be rainy days ahead, and I wanted to be prepared for them. My growing bank account was my insurance policy.

Within six months, I was generating well over $100,000 a month, but it didn’t mean that much to me. I knew, instinctively, that there was more to come—much more. I was just getting started. But I wasn’t cocky about it. Quite the contrary. There were plenty of people after their own piece of the Internet pie, and if I became complacent—if I let my guard down for even a moment—the results could be disastrous.

That was another lesson: Never lose sight of the competition. I would check their Web sites religiously to see what they were up to. I kept track of any unfamiliar ads. I made lists of companies whose business I was after and figured out how I might approach them.

Throughout this period, my parents were pretty much oblivious to what I was doing. I would work before I left for school, I would check my e-mails and call in for messages while I was at school, and I would work when I got back, but otherwise life went on pretty much as usual. My father would return from the post office at six or seven each evening, and my mother often worked double shifts and didn’t get home till eight or nine. I didn’t share the details with them—not because I was hiding anything, but because I wanted to retain my independence. Even then, I sensed that it would be important for me to be my own boss, to run my own show.

I didn’t share details with my sisters either. Kamal was working as a nurse, and Nirmal was studying to be a nurse, so they were in their own worlds, oblivious.

Taj knew about the money, of course, and he knew that I was selling advertising on the Internet, but he was discreet to a fault, and he also remained focused on his studies, determined to become an engineer. When I needed him to write a check, he wrote it, and he never asked any questions. He never seemed shocked by the amounts either, and he didn’t pry.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, I approached my father about dropping out of school, and—after some contained hysterics—he drove me to Accel to have that life-changing
conversation with the principal: “My son is going to do bigger things.”

The same night, when the family had gathered for dinner, my father looked across the table at me and said. “Okay. Maybe you can tell us exactly what you’ve been doing all this time.”

“You mean with my business?”

“Precisely.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

Everyone was staring at me. They all nodded.

“Okay,” I said, and I plunged in: “I’m selling advertising, on the Internet, and there are basically three elements at work. First, there’s the advertiser. The advertiser has a product or a service and he needs to sell it.

“Next, you have the Web site owners, also known as the publishers—because, just like newspaper publishers, they carry the ads. If I’m reading the news on CNN, for example, and I want to put ads on their site, I have to talk to the people at CNN—or to the people who handle advertising for CNN.

“And last but not least, you have the consumer, regular people who are surfing the net to read articles or get information.”

“Go on,” my father said.

“What happens is, the consumer goes to the site, takes a look at what he’s interested in—a news story, say—and sees an
ad on the page. If the ad interests him, he clicks on it and is transported to another Web site.

“If that was one of my ads, one of the ads I had placed on that site, I would get paid by the advertiser for that single click. And of course I’d get paid for every subsequent click. So the more clicks I get, the more money I make—because I’m sending traffic to the advertiser. Pretty simple, huh?”

“But where do you get the ads?” my mother asked.

“From the advertiser,” I said. “Or from any agency that handles multiple advertising accounts. That’s what I do all day. I call complete strangers and convince them to give me ads.”

“And how do you place the ads?” my brother asked.

“I call the Web site owners and convince them to put up the ads. And I give them a little financial incentive to do so.”

“It sounds easy,” Nirmal said.

“I don’t know if it’s easy,” I said. “But it’s a lot more fun than school.”

“Maybe you should hire your brother to work for you,” my father said.

“I like school,” Taj said. He really did. His grade point average never fell below 4.0.

“You’ll become an engineer,” my father told Taj. “And you’ll make fifty or sixty thousand a year. But if you go to work for your little brother, you could become a rich man.”

“I’ll work for you,” Nirmal said. “I don’t like school either.”

“You
are staying in school,” my father said.

Nirmal looked over at me, frowning. I felt bad for her. I don’t want to create the impression that I think school is a bad idea, but it’s not for everyone. There are times, certainly, when I wish I spoke fluent French, or Spanish, and I wouldn’t mind being able to tell a Cézanne from a Monet, but I’m far more interested in business.

And I’m not interested in business school either, by the way. Everything I know about business I learned as I made my way along, and I’m still learning. I’ve also learned that the biggest lessons came from my biggest mistakes.

In the days and weeks ahead, freed from school, I felt the adrenaline rush of creating a business from scratch, and I was monomaniacal about it. I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to do it fast. Patience may well be a virtue, but impatience has always worked better for me.

By June, less than three months since I’d dropped out of school, I had achieved revenues approaching $300,000 a month.

As you might expect from a newly well off kid, I decided it was time to buy my dream car, a Lexus GS400. I took my father and brother with me to the dealership, and there we were, three men in turbans, kicking tires.

I sat inside the car and smelled the new car smell, inhaling it.

“Are there any features this car doesn’t have?” I asked.

“No,” the salesman replied. “This car is fully loaded.”

He was right. There was nothing I could add. It was perfect. I paid for it—$58,000 in cash—and a couple of hours later I drove it off the lot and headed home. My brother was in the seat next to me. My father followed in his Honda. I made a mental note to myself to buy my father a new car when the time was right. I thought he might like a Lexus, too.

By the end of that year, I decided I needed a real office, so one weekend I asked my brother to help me and we went off to look around. I was actually looking for the cheapest, smallest place I could find, because I didn’t want to sign the standard five- or seven-year lease. We got lucky and found a tiny space in a very classy building. Ironically, this was the same building where my father had worked as a security guard, right after he arrived in the country, and I asked him to come and have a look at the place too.

“This brings back a lot of memories,” he said, “not all of them good.”

But he approved of the space. And I took it. And my brother signed the lease on my behalf. It was a little nerve- racking, though. Five thousand a month was a big-ticket item—more than my father’s monthly paycheck. I had money in the bank, certainly, but I was always thinking about the worst-case scenario. It’s not that I was pessimistic—on the contrary, I genuinely believed in myself—but I was cautious to a fault. I wanted to be ready for that rainy day because I knew that rainy days visited us all.

When I told Taj I wanted him to come work for me, he had his doubts. “How do I know you’re going to succeed?” he asked.

“You don’t,” I said. “But
I
know. And that’s all that matters.”

I had big dreams. I expected greatness from myself. And, most important, I believed in myself.

The following week, Taj and I raced around town buying furniture. Again I was Mr. McFrugal. I got used, run-of-the-mill stuff from various places, and I went to Office Depot for cheap filing cabinets and equally cheap modular units. My office wasn’t being designed to impress anyone. No one would ever come to the office. My business took place on the phone and on the Internet. The office was strictly for me and for the staff I would try to put together in the months ahead. I had 1,200 square feet of space, enough room for half a dozen people, and I was looking for salespeople. At that point, more than anything else, I needed more commitments from the ad agencies and from the Web site owners. It was all about volume.