The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions

by Gurbaksh Chahal

  So let me repeat: You don’t have to start with a completely new idea. In fact, if you start with something that’s too different, people might have doubts about your untested model. It might be a brilliant idea, and your model could very well be ahead of its time, but if the investors can’t relate to it there’s a good chance you’re not going to get funded. My advice is to work with something they understand, then turn it into the model you envisioned in the first place. It’s a mistake to try to reinvent the wheel when you’re coming out of the gate. Start slow and steady, get to parity, then innovate.

  Another thing that really helped is that I had a healthy attitude about money. I didn’t have to get rich overnight. I was in it for the long haul, and I was looking to build relationships that lasted. The size of the account really didn’t matter. What mattered was the way I handled it. If I treated every customer equally, and to the best of my abilities, I knew it would open doors, and that those doors would lead to other, bigger doors. It was one thing to deliver on your promises and another thing to deliver more than you promised; I made it a point to try to do the latter. And I generally managed it. At the end of the day, people were looking for results. That’s what mattered: results. Results were key. Results inspired confidence, and confidence led to lucrative, long-term relationships.

  The lesson here is clear: Never do anything for money—or, at least, solely for money. Of course you want to make money, but if that’s the only goal, it will adversely affect all of your decisions. They will be colored by greed. So don’t let money define the beginning of the journey; make money the rainbow that comes at the end.

  This isn’t rocket science. If I walk into a store to purchase something, and the clerk is dull and unhelpful, I see a person who has a long, difficult climb ahead of him. But if I get someone who is energetic—who treats me with respect, who takes the job seriously (even if it’s a supremely uninspiring job)—I see a person who has the potential to go places. It might not happen that day or that week or that month, but attitude gets you noticed, and the right attitude reaps rewards. It’s a simple lesson but an important one. Never relax. Never rest on your laurels. And always look for a way to deliver more than is expected of you. And even when you’re doing well, don’t get complacent. Stay hungry. And work harder than the competition. In order to stand out in an increasingly crowded field, I had to be better than the rest of them.

  Every morning, before I left for school, I would start my day by reviewing a checklist—all the things I needed to do to keep the business running smoothly. Much later, I learned that most businesses do this and that they have a name for that list: key performance indicators (KPIs). This is a simple system they use to measure their progress. It looks at all the variables—customer base, turnover, profitability, debt, and so on—to help determine if there are any weaknesses that need to be addressed. I was doing it by instinct. Then I would look at the daily revenue reports and at the forecasts for the day, the week, the month, and the quarter (hoping I might last an entire quarter!). And when I was done with that, I’d spend a little time looking at what my competitors were up to (new clients, announcements, etc.). Finally, I would roll up my sleeves and begin making calls to potential new advertisers and new publishers.

  Before long, I was getting more and more accounts and generating significant amounts of money. I would get a $50,000 order, fill it in record time, and double it the following month. And this was happening over and over again.

  But I was still a one-man operation, and that worried me. I had a snazzy Web site, yes, but there were plenty of areas where I felt I was coming up short. I was writing checks by hand, for example, and that looked unprofessional. So I fixed it: I got a simple computer program that generated slick looking checks. Then there was my answering machine. It was cheap and tinny sounding, so I sprang for my own phone line and a professional voice-mail system. These might seem like minor details, but they are significant: A company that looks good and sounds good inspires confidence. And when a client has confidence in you, he will have no qualms about recommending you to friends and colleagues.

  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 abou
t 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.

  If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it—teach yourself to be impatient.

  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, s
mallest 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.”