“stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”

By Author: Abe Cherian
Total Articles: 37
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“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.” Those were the words that echoed out to a crowd of fresh-faced Stanford graduates, during Steve Jobs’ commencement speech.

Now, those same words have become the new anthem for the entrepreneurial world.

While my own personal use of Apple products is limited to only an iPod and iPad, I’ve always admired Steve Jobs for his inspiring creative abilities and the level of dedication he put in to everything he believed in.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

I think every entrepreneur can relate to that inspiring anecdote from Jobs’ speech. It truly defines the mindset everyone with a dream should strive to build, and is the essence of entrepreneurship.

Think back to any successful endeavor in your life.

Chances are it was a success, mainly because you were hungry to make it happen and were willing to make any mistakes necessary to get there.

History is littered with entrepreneurs who often sacrificed everyday comfort, in exchange for keeping their dreams alive - some of which have gone on to build multi-million dollar businesses.

In ...
... the summer of 1995, I was working in a restaurant in Long Island as an assistant manager. To me, it was nothing more than a position given to make someone feel more important and keep them dedicated enough to maybe someday reach the all-important role of ‘manager’.

However you want to look at it, the simple fact remained that I was still waiting tables - now without the right to collect tips!

There I was, a 26 year old newly wed. Broke, in debt, living in the basement of my wife’s parents’ house and slowly starting to second guess the choice of marriage.

It was a very dark time in my life, where the “light at the end of the tunnel” I’d heard so much about, seemed to be far too out of reach.

Like many others in this type of position, it wasn’t long until I discovered a few self-improvement products. I guess you could say this is where the foolishness started.

Once I discovered that learning to improve the way I thought was the “only way out”, I quickly began spending most of my weekly paycheck on self-improvement stuff.

As I started consuming more and more of those products to bring me closer to my goal, the distance between my wife and I increased. A few months later, we got divorced and I traded my steady restaurant gig for a door-to-door sales job - another foolish attempt to pursue my dreams.

For the next two years, I bounced around New York City, Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn, selling various products and business services.

In 1997, I discovered the Internet and decided to spend my downtime figuring out how to start an online business.

With the sales skills I honed door-to-door and the very little technical knowledge I had, I started a membership resource website for online marketers.

Since I decided to jump right in without a whole lot of tech skills, I was pretty much forced to rely on fly-by-night hosting companies and unreliable programmers. Both were equally willing to take my money, but neither ever bothered to deliver on their promises.

In the end, that lead to shutting down what I had invested three months worth of time, energy and enthusiasm to build. Fortunately, those three months gave me a taste of online sales and I was hooked.

“Stay hungry...”

Armed with about a month’s worth of rent, I decided (foolishly) to quit my sales job and focus solely on building another membership site.

Since I knew better the second time around, I was able to find a reliable programmer to help me with my new project.

The catch?

It was going to cost me $800 for him to do the job and I had exactly $850 saved for the month’s rent. My girlfriend (my wife now) and I still talk about that brilliant decision that we made, without knowing how it would turn out.

“Stay foolish...”

Of course, it wasn’t happily-ever-after right away...

The rent wasn’t paid for that month and we found ourselves living in a cheap motel for a few days after we got kicked out of. The sting of eviction was numbed by the fact that we still had our membership site.

Now, we only needed paying members.

As it turns out, the business model we chose for the membership site—free to join, with an optional paid upgrade—was and still is one of the most effective business models available.

Fast forward about 7 months and the site was producing tens-of-thousands of dollars per month!

We reinvested the revenue from that venture back into many other successful online businesses since, and have never looked back.

Getting divorced and quitting my only steady job: Foolish...

Going from steady checks to a commission-only position: Foolish...

Handing over that hard-earned commission to charlatans online: Foolish...

Spending our last month’s rent on an uncertain future: Foolish...

But in the end, is it really so foolish?

Perhaps the most foolish decision would have been to never get started at all.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish...”

When Steve Jobs said those words, I could feel the goose bumps all over me.

Abe Cherian is an Internet Entrepreneur since 1999. As the founder of AdClickMedia.com, a pay-per-click advertising network, and the CEO of Multiple Stream Media, an online Advertising and Marketing firm, Abe and his team has helped tens of thousands of online advertisers reach 'the right market' at 'the right time', with the 'right message'. To start advertising and driving traffic click here to open your free account: http://www.rent-a-list.com