It was the sound of a cardboard box landing on the kitchen table.
But to me it was sweet music.
The year was 1994, and I’d already been playing around with computers—the simplest kind, the type that are less powerful than today’s MP3 players—since 1980.
Of course, when I say “playing around” what I actually mean is “playing.”
I’d had all the right intentions when I bought my first computer. I’d looked at the manual that explained how to create BASIC code and tried to write a few simple programs. I even got the screen to show “Hello world!” and felt very proud of myself. But I also discovered that to play a game all you had to do was stuff a floppy disk into a slot and wait for the program to load. That was so much easier and so much more fun.
I never did learn programming. In fact, I can’t code my way out of a paper bag. I leave that to those who are far more knowledgeable and talented in that arena. However, I have always had a love for computer games.
Games cost money, and back in the mid-1990s, I had the sort of income that meant every penny had its place. My career until then had consisted of a mixture of disc jockeying at weddings and bar mitzvahs and selling encyclopedias door to door. I couldn’t really justify feeding my hobby with every new game that came out. That was when I spotted my first computer-related business opportunity.
It happened while I was reading reviews in a computer games magazine. I realized that the reviewers were getting their games for free. They got to play all the new games, and they didn’t have to pay for any of them. I liked the sound of that. I was all for getting free games, especially if all I had to do was write my opinion of them afterward.
But I didn’t have any writing experience then, and I couldn’t see a magazine hiring me to write reviews—even in return for free games—just because I liked playing them. So rather than hit the phones and hear a series of rejections, I created my own games magazine.
The Dallas Fort Worth Software Review was never the most popular publication in the world. Some of the early editions might even have had a readership of ... one. Two if a friend came over and happened to pick it up.
But when I called the software companies, told them I was a writer for the Dallcas Fort Worth Software Review, and asked if they’d like to send me review copies of their new games, one question they never asked me was how big my readership was.
In fact, the only question they asked was, “What’s your mailing address?”
When that first game was delivered to my door, and I laid the box on the kitchen table, I knew I’d had my first success. It wasn’t money. I still hadn’t made a dime. But I had a plan, the plan had worked, and I was off and running.
Soon games were pouring in from all the major software companies, and I didn’t have time to play them all, let alone review them all. So I put an ad on an Internet bulletin board system—there were no forums back then—offering free games in return for reviews. That meant the games could continue to come in and I could continue to produce my little games magazine without breaking too much of a sweat. The small readership, however, was a problem.
That problem was solved by the Internet. When the Web really took off, I was ready. Playing with computers made me aware of its growth—and its potential—so I took all of the game-related content I had collected and put it on a new web site called WorldVillage. com. I also invited other writers to come in and submit content on any subject that interested them.
Today, WorldVillage is still going strong and continues to enjoy hundreds of thousands of visitors each month.
That’s one Internet success story. As you’ll see, it’s not without its stumbling blocks—no business story ever is—but it has two key components that are essential for understanding (and duplicating) online success. They sum up the opportunity that the Web has brought to anyone with even a hint of entrepreneurial spirit.
The first is that online business success is open to anyone. I am a shining example of this. I’m not an expert. I still can’t program. I still hire out the writing on many of my sites as well as their management to people who can do these things better than I can. I’ve always been interested in computers, but I’m not what you’d call a professional computer person.
The point is you don’t need to complete a course in advanced programming. You don’t have to know what HTML is, what a server looks like, or that Ruby on Rails isn’t the name of a grunge band. Knowing those things might help—at least on the technical side. But you don’t need to know them. I’ve met plenty of Internet millionaires who think that style sheets are programs handed out at fashion shows. It hasn’t stopped them from creating successful site after successful site.
The second key component to the story of my first online success is that I still play computer games. They’re fun. I might play them less now than I used to, but I still sit with my family sometimes in front of the screen as we battle monsters together. I am pleased to say that I am a Level 80 Warrior in World of Warcraft.
The reason the Dallcas Fort Worth Software Review and then WorldVillage succeeded was that I was doing something I loved. I didn’t set out to make money. I set out with the idea of doing something that I enjoyed. Because I enjoyed it, I was willing to put time and effort into doing it well. And because I put time and effort into doing it well, other people enjoyed
