oh, that was crazy! No money, no cars and constant work 24/7. Slept every other day.
We borrowed 5K and my partner had the craziest idea. He said, lets give everyone free hosting as long as they use our AVS.
I said that is the craziest thing I have ever heard, so we agreed this would be an all in business decision. So in 1997 we invested in a T1 with every penny we had. It was a break it or make it decision.
I was always on the boards like I am now so I would promote our new Free Hosting.
One by One, we started picking up new webmasters. The free hosting was a major hit.
Then we did a Banner Program, I made the banners with barely any skills and put webmasters banners on our links pages in exchange they put ours on their sites. Then the click through programs, then one after another, we did what nobody else was doing so the word of mouth got out.
Then we never stopped, never took a break, never got spoiled by the money we made. Till today, we have huge offices and constantly work. Can't get spoiled in this business.
This is the quick version of it, but it was a lot of work, that's for sure. And it paid off.
