The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions by Gurbaksh Chahal Page B

there was more to come—much more. I was just getting started. But I wasn’t cocky about it. Quite the contrary. There were plenty of people after their own piece of the Internet pie, and if I became complacent—if I let my guard down for even a moment—the results could be disastrous.
    That was another lesson: Never lose sight of the competition. I would check their Web sites religiously to see what they were up to. I kept track of any unfamiliar ads. I made lists of companies whose business I was after and figured out how I might approach them.
    Throughout this period, my parents were pretty much oblivious to what I was doing. I would work before I left for school, I would check my e-mails and call in for messages while I was at school, and I would work when I got back, but otherwise life went on pretty much as usual. My father would return from the post office at six or seven each evening, and my mother often worked double shifts and didn’t get home till eight or nine. I didn’t share the details with them—not because I was hiding anything, but because I wanted to retain my independence. Even then, I sensed that it would be important for me to be my own boss, to run my own show.
    I didn’t share details with my sisters either. Kamal was working as a nurse, and Nirmal was studying to be a nurse, so they were in their own worlds, oblivious.
    Taj knew about the money, of course, and he knew that I was selling advertising on the Internet, but he was discreet to a fault, and he also remained focused on his studies, determined to become an engineer. When I needed him to write a check, he wrote it, and he never asked any questions. He never seemed shocked by the amounts either, and he didn’t pry.
    Finally, unable to take it anymore, I approached my father about dropping out of school, and—after some contained hysterics—he drove me to Accel to have that life-changingconversation with the principal: “My son is going to do bigger things.”
    The same night, when the family had gathered for dinner, my father looked across the table at me and said. “Okay. Maybe you can tell us exactly what you’ve been doing all this time.”
    “You mean with my business?”
    “Precisely.”
    “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
    Everyone was staring at me. They all nodded.
    “Okay,” I said, and I plunged in: “I’m selling advertising, on the Internet, and there are basically three elements at work. First, there’s the advertiser. The advertiser has a product or a service and he needs to sell it.
    “Next, you have the Web site owners, also known as the publishers—because, just like newspaper publishers, they carry the ads. If I’m reading the news on CNN, for example, and I want to put ads on their site, I have to talk to the people at CNN—or to the people who handle advertising for CNN.
    “And last but not least, you have the consumer, regular people who are surfing the net to read articles or get information.”
    “Go on,” my father said.
    “What happens is, the consumer goes to the site, takes a look at what he’s interested in—a news story, say—and sees anad on the page. If the ad interests him, he clicks on it and is transported to another Web site.
    “If that was one of my ads, one of the ads I had placed on that site, I would get paid by the advertiser for that single click. And of course I’d get paid for every subsequent click. So the more clicks I get, the more money I make—because I’m sending traffic to the advertiser. Pretty simple, huh?”
    “But where do you get the ads?” my mother asked.
    “From the advertiser,” I said. “Or from any agency that handles multiple advertising accounts. That’s what I do all day. I call complete strangers and convince them to give me ads.”
    “And how do you place the ads?” my brother asked.
    “I call the Web site owners and convince them to put up the ads. And I give them a little financial incentive to do so.”
    “It sounds easy,”