Confessions of a Compulsive Entrepreneur and Inventor
How I Secured Fifteen Patents, Started Ten Companies, and Became a Pioneer on the Internet
by
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By the end of 1993, I decided to launch PC Flowers and Gifts on the internet as an independent service. It was clear that Prodigy had lost the battle of being a major interactive platform to AOL. Once again, I had reached a point where I had to reinvent my current business model.
The concept for the internet version of PC Flowers was to take all of the knowledge that we had learned from launching and marketing our service on the closed Prodigy network since 1989, achieving $6,000,000 in annual sales and apply it to the open internet. Key lessons included the necessity to gain credibility with potential customers so they would feel safe when they placed orders with their credit cards on the PC Flowers and Gifts service and a comfort level that they would receive their money back if they were not satisfied with their purchase.
As Prodigy was owned by IBM and Sears, Prodigy satisfied these credibility requirements, providing a sense of credibility and security for the consumer in the new, relatively insecure world of E-commerce. Adding to the credibility side of the ledger, I was named Entrepreneur of the Year and also voted among the top 100 marketing executives in the
It was not enough. Certainly no award was sufficient to protect our business forever.
Another important lesson was that by making prodigy a partner through their participation of receiving 11% of sales, PC Flowers received prominent placement for monthly sales banners without having to put up the funds that other service providers did by paying for their advertising.
LESSON LEARNED:
I developed a business model that would allow me to make future major internet providers our business partners through the development of Tracking and revenue-sharing programs and, by association, we gained the credibility that these name-brand business partners already possessed, in the same manner I had with Prodigy.
Our Prodigy experience showed that credit card security and realizing customer credibility and satisfaction were going to be much more difficult to achieve across the wide-open information superhighway.
In early 1994, I began to discuss the concept of transporting PC Flowers onto the internet with potential investors. Oddly, the investors I approached were firmly convinced that the internet was a research vehicle and would not support a commercial venture. I decided to approach IBM and to leverage the success I had achieved on Prodigy toward convincing IBM to fund the development work necessary to transport PC Flowers onto the internet.
I proposed that PC Flowers and Gifts would become the successful case study for the electronic marketing services division of IBM. I also proposed that IBM use the high profile we had achieved in the interactive world as a means of attracting other service providers to a concept I called the IBM Interactive Mall. The IBM Interactive Mall would enable IBM to offer a turnkey solution to other service providers across the internet.
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About the Book
The free market system is based on creative ideas: if you have one and know how to sell it, you’ll 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 everyone’s 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 tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. It’s an idea-man’s 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.
About the Author
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.