Michael J. Kowalczuk, Technology Writer

I want to share some ideas and help you learn more about me. Please explore my official website – look for something that may interest you.

Paradoxical; and the start of the Internet bubble.

It was March 1996, the summer had just slipped away and the weather was getting colder. My cousin said something about a global platform that would connect the world, send mail instantly (seconds) and create a global cosmopolitan. I wasn’t listening, I was playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out on the Nintendo. It wasn’t until Bartek’s house – a friend who still remains my friend from childhood. He bought a Macintosh computer. One of the first that was publicly offered and sold hundred-thousands around the world. Needless to say, I had to see this “surf the net” paradigm.

The Global Cosmopolitan was born and this changed the world.

We hooked up a super fast 14.4k external dial-up modem (modulator demodulator  or mo-dem), which we used to connect to his local ISP. We connected, listened for the annoying beeps and experienced Yahoo search. We found Toronto news, we surfed the country in seconds, and as his father walked into the room to see what we were hacking with, we surfed the Internet wave to Poland and read news in another language; and then China; and then France. He explained that we could send electronic mail to someone “in an instant”. They would be able to read it right away without waiting for 2 weeks before it arrives.  I was hooked. Wired in. There was a technological shift in reality; a Global Cosmopolitan had evolved, although it was small, it began to spread like pollination. Most importantly I asked myself a question that I couldn’t answer until the Y2K in 2000.How was this global cosmopolitan going to shape the rest of the world?

Google, Ebay, Amazon, Paypal; and that changed everything.

The first thing I ever bought on eBay, was a $350 Cannon PowerShot A620 Digital Camera. I believed that the Internet was going to be safe zone to pay for products and have them delivered to your door. I was a little skeptical, but I believed in the integrity of eBay sellers, so I bought a product from somewhere in North Carolina. It was a satisfactory experience – although I do remember friends and family saying things like “you’re crazy; buying and paying for products on the Internet is a scam”. Needless to say I didn’t tell anyone until I took their picture ( and now in the current year: 2011: every store on earth is virtually available for online shopping and delivering their products to you).  My camera lasted for 5 years (7 if you count the two years the previous owner used it) and it wasn’t a “scam”.

Everything Crashed; The Y2k: the bubble had burst.

Everything crashed. eBay crashed, Google crashed, Amazon.com crashed, PayPal.com crashed, Yahoo.com crashed, AOL.com crashed; and the other 97% of Internet baby bubbles that couldn’t stay afloat. How come we don’t talk about them, because they died. When the bubble burst, it was a tidal wave that took out every small, great, stupid, insipid, bright, extraordinary idea that had crazy potential or nothing. What survived were the Billion dollar babies. The economic “bubble burst” recession of 2000 wasn’t that bad, I for one, didn’t really know what was going on, more importantly how could I profit from this. I’ve always felt a very powerful and emotional bond to the buyer/seller experience and profiting from it usually as the seller – but that another story.  Start-up ventures which needed capital began to shutdown, there simply wasn’t enough funding to hold them. Websites which were businesses which were websites trying to be a business, shut down and the Internet started to fold on top of the bubble. Bankers realized that their investments were failing, AOL.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com all felt the shrink. Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost. The websites that survived (all the above) are pioneers in today’s (currently: 2011) marketplace/online industry.

In 2000 and the subsequent years after the dot-com bubble bursting epicosity, my curiosity peaked about “the net”. If it wasn’t for Patrick – my cousin, and my mother pushing me towards technology and science I would have probably pursued another field. Dr. Michael, would have been a good field too. Patrick taught me about Google Page Ranking. About Search Engine Optimization. About Marketing Campaigns. About where customers come from. About how everyone is trying to compete for the same thing. About content is King.

Facebook: 800 Million users by 2011; in 2009 50% of them were 56-65 year olds; 40% are <25 yr olds.

I learned that if you’re going to be an an Internet Rockstar, you must become a contributor to the global information highway . You must take shape and know how to treat and why to treat the new generation of consumers in new ways.  Generation-Y [Reference taken from Dr. Prof. David Foot of the University of Toronto] will spend on average 50% more time than you did in your youth playing video games, virtual reality, or virtual anything (iPhone, Android enabled phone devices etc…) inside (in doors, homes, apartments, condos) than outside (clean fresh greater outdoors, places like parks that have animals and real trees). 2009 statistics showed that most people on Facebook were 56-65 years old.

The Crystal Ball

The importance of social media was not entirely crystallized in my mind until 2008, when I realized, I spend a lot of time on Facebook. Most people did, always wanting to know more about who did what, what did they watch and who has the best profile pic today. I was given the opportunity from CIO Canada to be part of an exciting panel discussion. This panel was entirely unique, because instead of the CIOs answering questions from the audience, they reversed the roles of the parties involved and suddenly it was the audience [as future leaders] answering questions by the CIOs. As the panel progressed and we answered question after question, one trend stood out: CIOs were interested and worried about this new generation. The new generation wanted Telecommuting available, wanted to use online banking at work, wanted to stay connected via LinkedIN and Facebook [and all this was still relatively new then].

Started a Business selling websites and search engine traffic.

In 2006, I started my own company entitled Online-Web-Traffic.com, where, we were a traffic source for small businesses. I wanted to build a boutique where users from all parts of the world could connect to and we could provide sources of powerful, high PR ranking organic traffic. We built a few websites, and the template for the business model starting taking shape.

Global Economic Crisis; websites were dead, apps were in, Google killed the traffic jam.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t the best time to be in a student-run business. But I did learn a lot. My mistake was, selling affiliate products I had no control over. The revenue from the products was good, but I personally felt that there was zero integrity in selling products which I did not own. I was hoping people would be blind enough to buy the products we were selling and the company would earn a commission on every sale. I used all my strategies and everything I learned. I even spent money on hardcore advertising on Google Adwords. But then I started to feel guilty. I was lying to myself and I could feel my integrity as a human being slipping. I bought the sales books, and the sales CD’s. I listened to NLP tapes and Jim Rohn and the list continues. I created multiple websites, blogs, articles that brought thousands of potential customers, hungry for what I had to offer. But my ‘humanity’ had another lesson for me. It hit me like a cold stone. I was afraid to sell the products because I knew that they genuinely wouldn’t help that person. Maybe it was a Canadian thing, and maybe because we’re too nice of a ‘people’. As a matter of fact, I turned potential customers away from my website business, because I had the integrity to say ‘No’ this is not a product for you.  My business mentor tried to push more product with me by sending/selling his affiliate products through me – obviously he wasn’t a good mentor.  I felt trapped. When I turned him down, he never replied. He made his $80k salary every month (yes, every single month, he ripped off poor US saps for $1k to $10k a person on the “idea” that they could be the 1%; that they could be an automatic millionaire, that was his niche. I was fed up. I did spend a lot of money, and I had a lot of ‘skin’ in the game. But I felt I couldn’t do this for another 30 years. It just felt so bad. I felt like an inhumane greedy scum. I guess Americans love greed, the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.  These con-trepreneurs Michael Force, Jay Kubassek, Kameron George, Aaron Rashkin, Aaron Parkinson are not to be trusted.

Lesson Learned: Greed is superman’s cape that the one eye monster wears in the land of the blind – the cape isn’t there to protect you. Its purpose is to cast a shadow of greatness, so that you too, will believe in the 1%.

Lessons learned: You’re smarter than 80% of the Americans you do business with. Do not trust someone else who didn’t go through a University education with your time, energy and money. Affiliated products will only benefit you, if they have immediate value in them. 97% of Americans are sold on the white picket fence, and not the reality. They don’t care who you sell the products to, where they go, what outcome they’ll bring. They are greedy pigs. Greedy greedy greedy pigs.

A very Hard Lesson in business: $15k in liquid assets sink faster than NASDAQ.

There is zero integrity in selling a product in which you do not own. lesson Learned: I have a deeper understanding of my integrity and my customers.

I learned as a Graduate; quickly.

I graduated. Business was on hold. I was hired by a privately owned management consulting firm where I consulted the CEO, CIO, CFO’s of various businesses about topics such as waste management, accounts receivables and other business cycle strategies. (GSMIC: company went bankrupt in 2011 – MK 12.12.2011]. I let a good friend down to take this job. Wayne Yao had offered me an interview with a PwC HR person, and two days before the interview, I called and tried to cancel. They called me the day of, and I had to cancel. To this day, I don’t even know if they knew I was cancelling or if they were expecting me. I feel bad for Wayne, he deserved to kick my ass for that shit I pulled on him. “Sorry Wayne, I really let you down friend. Please forgive me” – MK.

Nov – April. All expenses paid. 100% commission sales salary.

I remember the day I quit (very politely and kindly, I even sent the VP a well written note of my intention to leave). I thought back to the Interview I had to cancel with PwC because I thought that this sales experience was going to fulfill my dreams. I bought the ‘nice car’ that I needed and was going to pay off in 6 months. And I assured myself I was going to do this until the end. I was sure. I never quit, I have endurance, stamina, and the intelligence to figure out a pattern to seeing the sale go through until the end – given that the customer needed it. I don’t regret I took it, it was probably one of the best sales experiences I have ever done. I developed thick skin for sales and for that industry. My friend sent me a link to Scott Channel who called me personally because I read a little of his book. I did my own inside calls, created my own appointments with clients, and went door to door meeting with them. I was committed to me, and for the company. I remember that day I quit. I didn’t have any appointments, I asked my manager how our team was doing. This is the moment I found out our turnover problem. The entire sales team of 10 members in the Ontario district had quit. No sales and no commissions for over 2 weeks of consistent pre-sales and business development wore down the entire sales team. I was the last to go.  (Inserted: GSMIC went Bankrupt in 2011: the private company did not update its business model).

The Wild Card

That same year I launched tbwebvertize.com: My intention was to build productive little tidbit websites with content and sell adspace. I did my own business development and had a few leads and started to generate traffic. I had to start below my asking rate, but business was slowly moving, again. I decided I needed more money and I could still manage my part-time company on the side. A fellow distinguished PhD  professor and colleague helped me find work in educational technology  as an analyst. Out of 31 candidates, I was number 31. I was told I was the wild card. They had just closed the application process. They called me 3 hours later with the offer. I took it.

How did it all happen? Inventiveness and out-of-the-box thinking were keystones of my success.

Beyond the strategy

In 2011, I was hired by a management consulting firm in Toronto to work in the Financial sector. I chose not to work with Accenture because CGI had my full attention. I felt that I could fully contribute a mix of educational technology skills with business skills given my role as a Technical Writer.

I kept my business ideas on the back burner. The programming on the side plate. And best of all, all my strategies on the napkin in front of me. Sun Tzu is a famous Chinese author for quoting war on the battlefield. He said that if you knew yourself, and you knew your opponent, you would win every battle. And the battle I’m referring to is not war; it is our inner battle, our inner game, our inner voice that is spoken and heard. I still believe that many of the ideas that I had, even the ones we didn’t explore were and still are good ones. And that future entrepreneurs will be able to explore if I do not get the chance to. I feel that through my experiences, I have lived well, I have learned lots, and I have made many friends in the process – and a few not so friendly. For the good of me and for everyone else involved, I hope to continue blogging, and providing clear information, tips and strategies for entrepreneurs about mobile platform programming innovations, stock market challenges, and most of all the social network.

Please excuse any typos

- MK [Updated 01.31.2012]