Tech Town, NC

Ryan Allis, the Triangle area wunderkind, iContact CEO, and host of some of the best meetups in the land wants to add another item to his resume – Bestselling Author. Ryan’s written a book called “Zero to One Million” about how he built a company (two companies actually) to the level of $1 million in sales and it’s his goal to have it reach #1 on Amazon on February 5th. On its face it’s a business and management book, but look deeper, and it’s about much more.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Ryan and, as you may have already read here, he’s focused on a lot more than making millions of dollars (though he is quite good at that). I’ll let him explain things in his own words, and then I’ll do a quick review as I was lucky enough to get an advance copy.

From Ryan…
“This book and promotional effort is not an effort to make any money whatsoever–it’s an effort to spread a message of opportunity and social change and share what I’ve learned as an entrepreneur. All of the proceeds from the sale of the books are going to The Humanity Campaign–an international campaign to end hunger, war, genocide, and poverty and provide access to technology, healthcare, and education at home and across the world. I truly do hope to spend the rest of my life as a leader of our generation to help change our world together.”

The book itself is a rare look at the guts of building a business from the ground up. Few people have the talent to take ideas and build them into million dollar businesses, and of those people even fewer are willing to share all the insights they’ve learned along the way. Ryan’s experience begins with doing computer consulting with older people in Florida, then moves to his experience with web development and marketing for a health product company and the founding of his own company, Virante. By the time he was 17 Ryan had built the health company’s online sales to over $1 million, and was only getting started.

What’s great about this book is that, in addition to the story behind it, Ryan provides a detailed blow by blow of his experiences. For anyone who’s ever wondered about the nuts and bolts of starting a business, this book is an amazing resource. There’s detailed information on incorporating a company, marketing a product, seeking venture capital, using debt, and much more.

But Ryan also tackles the big picture. He lets you in on the self examination he’s done to test his entrepreneurial side. He knows entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but he also explains why, and helps the reader find if an entrepreneur is lurking somewhere inside them. He talks about persistence. He talks about building relationships. He talks about setting goals.

And, last but not least, he looks at the big problems of our time and asks how entrepreneurs can help fix them. Part of the answer, Ryan hopes, is for you to read this book.