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