CHAPTER 18: Good Luck With That
CHAPTER 19: Masterminding For Profit
CHAPTER 21: Launching With Controversy
CHAPTER 22: Competitors Gone Wild
CHAPTER 24: Rewards Of The Business
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thought about writing this book for some time, but kept putting it off. It was the pushing of Rich Wilens that led me to start banging on the keyboard for a few hours a day.
There were many people who helped me make the stories of this book a reality, a couple had no idea they were even a factor, but I would like to thank them, anyway. Those people are Dr. Mark Kerble (the only teacher that ever saw any potential in me) and Henry “Butchy” Lucas (my childhood friend’s father who first taught me the phrase “work hard, play hard”).
I am where I am today thanks to the friendship, partnership, and motivation of James J. Jones, Herb Van Dyke, Bryan Zimmerman, Chad Casselman, Mike Carraway, Brad Gosse, Justin Quick, Ron Douglas, Bill Guthrie, Colin Theriot, Gerald Glynn, Bob Van Court, Dr. Ben Adkins, Ben Littlefield, Anthony Aires, Brad Spencer, Dan Ardebili, Mike Cowles, David Eisner, Michael Haynes, Mike Chauvin, Mike Lantz, Sam England, Brian McLeod, and to the many other partners and friends that have stood by me, along the way.
FOREWORD
The year was 1995, and the Internet was the new frontier. Like the 19th century wild west, the first Internet gold rush saw unprecedented venture capital poured into anything with a dotcom at the end of its name. And like the early settlers, there were fortunes made… and lost.
There were only 18,000 websites in the entire world in 1995, and I was fortunate enough to have created one of them. While I have enjoyed great success on the Internet, my version of the wild west was like a John Wayne film. The bad guy done someone wrong, the damsel in distress needed rescuin’, and at The Duke’s command a posse was sent out to procure justice. Like these early Hollywood versions of the west, there were casualties, but not a lot of blood.
The same can’t be said of E. Brian Rose. His Internet and entrepreneurial exploits play out more like Clint Eastwood’s film, Unforgiven. Gritty. Raw. Casualties. This is the Internet Wild, Wild West portrayed as a real-life gold rush with larger-than-life characters, of which “EBR” has earned the right to tell.
From the warn-torn battlefields of Somalia to the relationship-scarred partnership feuds of the Internet, E. Brian Rose has been on the front lines as a participant, and a witness, to people, places and incidents that sound like they were scripted for a Hollywood film. But they weren’t. This the true story of a man who saw gold in them thar hills, and grabbed his pick, trusty six-shooter, modem, mouse and keyboard to chisel out a place in Internet history.
From software and ebay to private placements and creating a powerhouse of an affiliate network, EBR spins story after story of interesting characters (punctuated by his own “colorful” style of story-telling).
So saddle up, cowboys and cowgirls. Gather ‘round the campfire and listen up as Uncle Brian shares the good, the bad and the ugly of the online world. It’s inspiring and enlightening, but it t’aint always purty.
One thing is for sure. It’s all real, but the good guy isn’t about to ride off into the sunset. While he’s covered a lot of ground already, you be sure that this is just the beginning for E. Brian Rose.
Set a spell with Brian, and remember that if you ask Mr. Taggart for a can of beans, likely he’ll tell you that you’ve had enough.
-Joel Comm New York Times Best Selling Author
Entrepreneurship is a journey. It’s a mindset, a lifestyle, and an adventure.
It is a never ending course of learning that no school on earth could possibly teach. You must live it to understand it.
You must be willing to take a leap down a rabbit hole that leads to a place where everything goes against what the average person believes.
Once inside, you will experience disappointment, failure, and sometimes even disaster. However, it is a path you must be willing to take if you truly want to experience independence and absolute freedom.
CHAPTER 1
TWENTY IS TOO MUCH, MON
I was half asleep, half thinking about what it would be like when we landed. There was a muffled bang.
The loadmaster gets on the PA system and tells everybody to get buckled.
Then, in mid speech, he drops the microphone and runs to his seat.
The world’s largest cargo plane started to waiver from side to side. An army colonel sitting next to me whispers, “I’m pretty sure this is it.” Disregarding our major difference in rank, I whisper back, “Shut the fuck up, sir!”
Hours earlier, we took off from a makeshift airstrip, somewhere in the Egyptian desert. The fire bottle in one of the engines went out and we were forced to make an emergency landing. For three days, we waited for a maintenance crew to arrive. There was a single large tent with sour orange juice, Twizzlers, a TV and VCR. The movie Candy Man played on a loop the entire time.
Flames were now shooting from one of the engines. Apparently, the fire bottle, whatever that is, wasn’t fixed correctly. We were going down. At a 45 degree angle, I could see green grass through my window. It was getting closer.
The next minute of my life is a blur. Zero recollection. All I know is we made it.
I spent the rest of the week at a German beach resort in Mombasa, Kenya. On a walk through some bad neighborhoods, I overheard a business deal going down. “Twenty is too much, mon,” said one guy. The other countered by saying he would throw in a small bag of weed. “Done,” the first man said. The next day, I saw him selling the two dozen wooden figurines for fifteen dollars each. All 24 of them were sold to tourists before lunch.
Back on a plane. This time, a smaller C141 jet would be taking us to our final destination. As we approached the airport, an announcement was made saying the landing strip was hot and the plane would not be stopping. We were told to jump out and run straight ahead, towards the cafeteria.
I was one of the last to deplane. I stumbled a bit while stepping off the still moving aircraft. As I regained balance, I could hear heavy machine gun fire all around. I stopped to look around. “Are you stupid? Run means run, asshole.” I don’t know who said it, but it was clear he was yelling at me.
In the cafeteria, we laid down next to rows of neatly stacked sandbags. CNN International was playing on a big screen TV. Coincidentally, the story was about Mogadishu, Somalia. We laughed as the woman reported