Internet speed
#51
08-16-2008, 07:27 AM
I actually missed my opportunity to do this the right way a bunch of years ago with Sojourn Systems in Lansing, MI. It started as an old surplus computer in a janitors closet, and was selling shell accounts to students for $20 a month. Within a year he had expanded to a few machines strategically placed in the building. I had the chance ti invest , but was still a student at the time and had very limited funds. He pulled it together anyhow, and within 3 years it was the 2nd largest web, mail, and dial-up internet providor in central Michigan. In the early 2000's he was bought out by the 2nd largest ISP in the state - ACD.NET... for about 10 to 12 million.
soo what does he do?? i dont get how that makes $... please explain
#52
08-16-2008, 09:27 PM
right now - he sits on a boat all day off the coast of florida... wtf would you do with 10 mil? 
Back when he started this project (93), he was working as custodian in the chemistry building at Michigan State. "The Internet" was still an NCSA funded project, and not really open to joe.public. Michigan State also didn't hand out shell accounts to their students, though a lot of them wanted it for services like Usenet. The only students that had shell accounts were computer science or engineering students.
So students were ready to pay $20 a month for a shell account. Then in 95 when the net went commodity, mom & pop ISP's were showing up everywhere. Cablemodem internet was in it's infancy and barely available, DSL was ungodly expensive (600+/mo), so everyone had dial-up accounts to said ISP's. It was the best time to get on board and start something up.
Once he generated enough money and had enough investors, he took his 3 unix boxes and put them in a very tiny retail space, and then had a t1 run to the location, bout about 40 modems, and started offering dial-up internet access. He got quickly overloaded, and had to expand. Soon the entire place was full of modems and terminal servers. It continued to grow, and he was taking a big chunk of business that ACD wanted, so they bought him out and made it worth his while.
I had the chance and missed it.
Back when he started this project (93), he was working as custodian in the chemistry building at Michigan State. "The Internet" was still an NCSA funded project, and not really open to joe.public. Michigan State also didn't hand out shell accounts to their students, though a lot of them wanted it for services like Usenet. The only students that had shell accounts were computer science or engineering students.
So students were ready to pay $20 a month for a shell account. Then in 95 when the net went commodity, mom & pop ISP's were showing up everywhere. Cablemodem internet was in it's infancy and barely available, DSL was ungodly expensive (600+/mo), so everyone had dial-up accounts to said ISP's. It was the best time to get on board and start something up.
Once he generated enough money and had enough investors, he took his 3 unix boxes and put them in a very tiny retail space, and then had a t1 run to the location, bout about 40 modems, and started offering dial-up internet access. He got quickly overloaded, and had to expand. Soon the entire place was full of modems and terminal servers. It continued to grow, and he was taking a big chunk of business that ACD wanted, so they bought him out and made it worth his while.
I had the chance and missed it.
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