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Giving Back As an Enlightened Entrepreneur

February 23, 2008

Giving Back As an Enlightened Entrepreneur – Book Excerpt

October 14, 2007 · Print This Article

Below is an excerpt on Giving Back from the updated version of Zero to One Million, coming out in February through McGraw Hill…

Giving Back

I did an exercise when I was 20 years old that changed my life forever. I wrote down how I wanted to use my life to make a difference in the world—to help build stronger communities and societies here at home, and also work to end poverty and hunger globally. When I learned from reading an annual world health report from the World Health Organization that over 18,000,000 people die every year (49,365 per day) from preventable diseases and starvation the gravity of some of the most important issues of our day hit me.

When I learned from a World Bank report that as of 2001, 2.7 billion people lived on under $2 per day (42% of the humans in the world), the realization made me want to spend my life working entrepreneurially to address these issues. When I read The End of Poverty, by Columbia Economist Jeffrey Sachs in 2006, I further committed to being a leader of my generation to address the problems and ensuring that by the end of my life at least 95% of the wealth I create goes back to creating societies with greater access to opportunity and sustainably assisting people who have not had the opportunity I have been so fortunate to have.

As I added to my knowledge through travel, reading, and speaking with people who live in developing nations, I updated my mission statement and began to write what I call a Purpose Statement. Along the way, the added depth of purpose has given what I strive to do every day deep personal meaning. For me, entrepreneurship is not about making lots of money and living an extravagant life, it’s about being able to make a positive impact in the lives of thousands, and hopefully someday, billions. If you can find how starting and building a successful business can help you have a larger meaning in your life and allow you to give back to your community, you will be able to more easily find your core motivation and align what you do, with what you love.

Finding a deeper meaning and core motivation for doing what you do is a critically important part of getting through the difficult times along the way to becoming a successful businessperson. I have found this meaning for myself. As I wrote in the introduction to this book my Purpose Statement is:

I wish to spend my life working through entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, investing, philanthropy, public policy, and politics to end poverty in developing nations and at home, ensure environmental sustainability, help people understand that we are one humanity and that our commonalities are much greater than our differences, and help expand access to opportunity, healthcare, and education across the world for every human of every nation.

Right now, please take a moment to write down how you hope to use your talents, resources, and time on this planet to make a positive difference in the world. This can be a powerful exercise, so please take a couple minutes to complete it.

Action Item 11 – Finding Deeper Purpose in Your Life

Take a moment and write how you hope to use your business, time, energy, and resources to make a positive difference in the world.

I wish to spend my life…

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Many extremely successful industrialists and entrepreneurs over the past 150 years have chosen to give back. Andrew Carnegie funded libraries all over the United States and created his foundation to ‘promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.’ Rockefeller created the Rockefeller foundation to ‘promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.’ Ford created the Ford Foundation to ‘promote democracy, reduce poverty, promote international understanding, and advance human achievement.’ Bill Gates has created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to ‘enhance global healthcare and reduce global poverty and expand access to educational opportunity and technology.’ Gates has said many times that he will give 95% of his wealth back to society before he dies. He considers himself a steward of wealth, as should any successful entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, score is kept by who can create the most value. Money comes to you directly in proportion to how much value you create by rearranging the resources of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial ability into the outputs that society desires. If we are successful, we can create millions, perhaps billions of dollars of value to society and in turn become wealth through stock appreciation, going public, or selling the company.

I hope you will give back as well what you can, along the way as you build your company—and especially after you have become wealthy. It is our job as enlightened entrepreneurs to give back to the society and world that has enabled us to succeed, to work to create fuller access to opportunity. Giving back can make our lives full of meaning and purpose, and make us more driven entrepreneurs at the same time.

I know if you set your mind to it you will become an extremely wealthy individual and make millions of dollars in your life. You may not see the way now, but if you commit to the goal and believe it, you will achieve it in time. It may take ten or twenty years, but if you choose to be, you will become a multi-millionaire. Knowing that you will become a multi-millionaire someday if you make the choice to be, I ask right now that you commit to contributing at least 90% of any wealth you make by the end of your life into a foundation or endowment of a charitable organization that can work to make our world a better place.

Action Item 12 – The Enlightened Entrepreneur’s Commitment

I, _______________ _________________ commit to contributing at least ninety percent of any wealth I earn during my lifetime into a personal foundation or endowments of charitable organizations that will work to address the major issues of our world such as poverty, hunger, education, healthcare, environmental sustainability and any other area that I believe will make the world, my nation, my state, and my community a better place.

X __________________________________ Date: ____________

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Now #2 on Amazon! | Dare Mighty Things

February 6, 2008

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Zero to One Million reached #2 on Amazon around 5am this morning and is still there as of 1:30pm! We’re still pushing to get to #1. I’m up against Oprah-backed Eckhart Tolle. That guy is amazing! My only hope may be to get on Oprah!

Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books

My plane got re-routed and I’m sitting here in the Detroit airport working on getting back to RDU. Boarding now!

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What We Accomplished Today — #3 overall on Amazon

February 5, 2008

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Blog Readers—

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support of the launch effort today of Zero to One Million!

We reached #1 in Business & Investing, #1 in Marketing, #1 in Entrepreneurship, #1 Mover & Shaker, #2 in Non-Fiction, and #3 overall on Amazon today, only bested by Oprah-backed Eckhart Tolle and the perennial favorite John Grisham. We beat out Eat Pray Love, Good to Great, The Tipping Point, Blue Ocean Strategy, Ready, Fire, Aim, The Four Hour Workweek, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Getting Things Done, The E-Myth Revisited, and well, every other book in the world other than Tolle’s A New Earth and Grisham’s The Appeal.

The momentum we built today will spread a message of entrepreneurial possibility to tens of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs across the United States and the world for many months to come. You’ve also helped with the beginnings of a lifetime effort to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to health care, education, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity through The Humanity Campaign.

It’s been an amazing day in so many ways. It is truly amazing what can be accomplished through word of mouth in the name of changing the world and spreading a message of entrepreneurial opportunity.

I wanted to publicly thank Carlos Garcia, Buck Rizvi, Shawn Casey, Tom Bell, Cindy Turrieta, Nana Gilbert-Baffoe, Keith Baxter, Derek Gehl, Dearl Miller, Matt Gill, Michael Simmons, Mark Shay, Rich Sloan, John Jantsch, Adam Gilbert, and Ilia Nossov for recommending Zero to One Million to their lists today.

To have the #3 bestselling book in the nation on Amazon on launch day is an over-the-top successful book launch by any measure. Thank you very very much for making this possible!

Here’s a list of some of the blogs we reached today…

Thank you sincerely for your help!

-Ryan

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LAUNCH: Today Is The Day

February 5, 2008

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Blog Readers…

My new book Zero to One Million launches today. Would you buy a copy on Amazon today before midnight Eastern Time?

The link is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071496661/

Today, February 5, is the big push day that we are trying to become #1 on Amazon. If we can sell 2,500 copies of the book today we should make it to #1. I would like to sincerely ask for your assistance to reach this lifetime goal.

In Zero to One Million, I share my story going from an 11 year-old with a dream living in Bradenton, Florida providing computer help to senior citizens for $5 per hour to today at age 23 running iContact in Durham, North Carolina, a company with 85 employees, 19,000 customers, and over $10 million in annual sales. I share a ten step process for building a company from scratch to over one million dollars in annual sales. I share everything I’ve learned about opportunity evaluation, raising investment and venture capital, product development, marketing, web marketing, web 2.0, online advertising, sales, finance, attracting and retaining superstars, managing a team, managing projects, setting goals, building systems, and scaling a company. I wrote the book with a desire to make this information accessible to anyone who wants to become a successful entrepreneur. This McGraw-Hill edition is fully updated from the original self-published edition from 2003.

Would you buy a copy or multiple copies of the book yourself today as well as spread the word to as many friends and colleagues as possible today? The book costs just $11.53 on Amazon.

All the proceeds from the book are being donated to my non-profit organization, The Humanity Campaign, which works to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity. You can read a recent article from the Raleigh News & Observer about these efforts at http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/900111.html.

If you buy the book today, I’ll send you additional gifts including videos from me on how to raise venture capital and how our generation can change the world and bonuses from my entrepreneur friends Derek Gehl, Buck Rizvi, Carlos Garcia, and Shawn Casey. Just forward the Amazon receipt to bonus[at]zeromillion.com to receive the gifts.

If you want to buy multiple copies for your friends, company, or local libraries–I am providing additional bonuses. If you buy five copies you’ll receive a video from me on how to access the world of institutional capital. If you buy 25 copies you’ll receive a signed copy of the original version of the book. If you buy 50 copies you’ll get a 15 minute strategy phone call with me. If you buy 250 copies I’ll invite you to visit me on-site in Durham for a day-long mastermind strategy session with the other large buyers. If you buy 500 copies, I’ll invite you to join my mastermind group of millionaire entrepreneurs for a quarterly meeting. You can buy multiple copies here on Amazon .

In the message I sent yesterday, I shared the real reason I am doing this…

Let me share the real reason I am doing this…

While I am optimistic, I am distressed by the state our world is in today. I am distressed by two simple facts…

First, while we have prosperity and opulence in many parts of our world–49,000 humans, people just like you and me, die each and every day from starvation and preventable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, and diarrhea. Second, while we live in comfort, 2.7 billion humans live on under $2 per day.

These numbers are Purchase Power Parity (PPP) adjusted–meaning that 42% of the humans in our world must live a FULL day on the same $2 that you and I would use to buy half a latte at Starbucks. These facts come from the World Bank and the World Health Organization, respectively.

When I learned these facts in Economics class at Manatee High School at age 17 from an inspirational teacher Robert Fletcher, I couldn’t ever afterwards pretend as if “I didn’t know.”

I’ve read a lot over the past six years about the topic of human poverty, global politics, and economics–inspirational books like The End of Poverty, The White Man’s Burden, How to Change the World, The Bottom Billion, Globalization and Its Discontents, The Lexus & The Olive Tree, The Road to Serfdom, Atlas Shrugged, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, The Secret History of The American Empire, The Fortune at The Bottom of the Pyramid, and The Mystery of Capital.

I’ve come to one singular conclusion…

I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to reduce poverty and hunger and increase access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity here at home in North Carolina and the U.S. as well as in developing countries. This is not charity–this is humanity. We will never have a secure world when half of our brothers and sisters do not have access to basic human needs like shelter, food, primary education, and preventative medicine.

Personally, I believe entrepreneurship is an essential part of the solution–commercial entrepreneurship, public sector entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship.

But being an entrepreneur is NOT easy. The knowledge of how to build a successful organization isn’t easily learned.

Building a new ’start-up’ of any type whether a non-profit or for-profit is definitely not simple. I’m only 23 and I feel sometimes like I have developed the scar tissue of a 45 year-old building iContact to $10 million in annual sales.

It’s truly been an absolute bliss to come in every morning and know that I’ve played a big role in creating 85 jobs. I get so much energy from being around our team. Being an entrepreneur is truly my passion. I love it, but the experience is what I can only imagine raising a real child would be like. What one has to sacrifice, to give, to devote to the effort is immense. I never thought it would be THIS hard when I started six years ago.

What I can say is that I’ve learned so much more than I could have ever imagined.

I want to share everything I’ve learned about business, about opportunity evaluation, about raising venture capital, about product development, about marketing, about sales, about finance, about managing people, about creating systems with as many entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs as I possibly can–and not just commercial entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs, corporate entrepreneurs, and public service entrepreneurs in every part of our world.

Writing this book for me is part of spreading a message of entrepreneurial possibility and social change.

I believe that every person in this world should have access to the knowledge of how to be an entrepreneur.

I believe that anyone in this world should be able to become a successful business, social, or public service entrepreneur–if they set their mind to it and have the right tools.

I also believe that IF the knowledge were spread far enough and the financial structures existed in our global society for anyone regardless of location or class to become a successful entrepreneur–our world would have the entrepreneurial talent at the grassroots level to address the biggest challenges of our generation–how to eliminate extreme poverty, get food to the hungry, medicines to the sick, and microcredit financial resources to the ambitious youth of our generation–so that they can productively solve the needs of humanity with their talents, not fight in political or religious wars driven by a lack of hope.

This is why I wrote Zero to One Million: How I Built A Company to One Million Dollars in Sales… And How You Can Too.

It’s not to make money–all the proceeds from the book are being donated to my non-profit organization, The Humanity Campaign, which works to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity.

But as I mentioned above, I need your help today to get the book to #1 on Amazon.com and have a chance to reach the weekly New York Times Bestseller List. Here are a few things you can do…

If you have a newsletter list, would you send a message to your list endorsing the book and asking your readers to buy it on Tuesday? You can download sample email copy that you can use here and sample subject lines here.

If you have a blog, would you post a message to your blog today endorsing the book and asking your readers to buy it on Tuesday? You can download an image of the book cover here. You can also read some advance reviews here.

If you use Facebook, would you personally message your friends that you know are especially interested in business, entrepreneurship, marketing, or social change and ask them to invite their friends as well on Monday to the Event? If you Admin any groups would you send a message about Zero to One Million to the group members and post to the group wall?

If you use LinkedIn, would you log in to LinkedIn and click on My Contacts, scroll to the bottom of the page, click on Export Contacts, and then either use your email program or a free trial account of iContact to email your contacts endorsing the book and asking your connections to buy it on Tuesday. Within iContact, just go to My Contacts > Add Contacts > From File to upload your list to your account. If you have more than 250 contacts and need me to increase the size of your trial account just reply to this email.

If you have contacts in Outlook, would you open Outlook, go to File > Import & Export > Export to a File and export your contacts as a Comma Separated Values file, and then either use your email program or a free trial account of iContact to email your contacts endorsing the book and asking your connections to buy it on Tuesday morning? Within iContact, just go to My Contacts > Add Contacts > From File to upload your list to your account. If you have more than 250 contacts and need me to increase the size of your trial account just reply to this email.

If you have any other way of reaching people (Parents, Friends, Neighbors, Chambers of Commerce, Clubs, Service Groups, Fraternities, Sororities, Podcasts, Print Media, Radio, Television), would you get in touch with as many people as you can endorsing the book and asking your connections to buy it on Tuesday? The link to pass on is http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071496661/.

Thank you very, very much for your help and assistance. I sincerely appreciate your help with Zero to One Million and look forward to working with you for many decades to change the world together. Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance whatsoever to you now or in the future.

Love, hope, peace, prosperity…

Cheers,
Ryan Allis

P.S. – Thank you very very much for your help!

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh

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