Zero to One Millions by Ryan P Allis

Well I am about half way finished with this wonderful book, but I felt I couldn't wait to tell everyone about it and recommend people read it.

The book is broken down into 3 parts.

Part one is essentially Ryan's story and background in a nutshell, how he went from a kid playing SimCity and Cannon Fodder to a local one man "geek squad" to web designer to Mutimillion dollar company CEO.

In five years the company went from $11k annual sales in '03 to $6.8 million in '07

Part Two is the ten step process he used to get there. This section mostly focuses on the how-to of building a business: developing a plan, implementing systems, raising capital, finding your motivation, a system for evaluating your business idea, online marketing, scaling your business, etc etc.

Part Three is called Choosing to Be Sucessful. I can't say much on this as I am still in the middle of part 2.

So far this is a great read and is quite inspiring. He seems to be very fastlane oriented with an emphasis on building systems to do more and increase efficiency while adding more value in his product for the customer.

One thing that stood out for me is that he mentioned that as important a great business idea is, it is only a small part of a bigger equation of the greater importance of executing the idea more effectively and more efficiently than everyone else.

In Allis's words, "Ideas are a dime a dozen. Unless you have a Ph.D and are doing cutting edge research at a top university, if you have thought of a business idea, someone else has thought of it too. The key to success then is rarely the idea and is nearly always good execution...I have heard many venture capitalists say they would rather have an A management team and a B idea than and A idea and a B management team."

This book has fastlane written all over it and is (so far) a great read for people who are looking to build an Information Age era business.

I am going see Allis speak tonight here in St. Louis at SLU, should be pretty interesting. Hopefully I'll finish the book before I go.

Hope this was helpful. Enjoy!

Great review, rep+++!

And thanks for posting it now...a bit ironic, being that I just received my copy of the book from Amazon today! Were part of the campaign to make his book #1 on Amazon on 2/5, too?!

Ty for the review, i just ordered it =D

Very good point. Some days I feel like I'm on one side of that team, some days I feel like I'm on the other.

Sounds like a cool book.

Yankee, thanks for the rep. I didn't buy the book on Feb 5th, but I was informed of the campaign shortly after via facebook. I first heard about Allis through the thread about the Donnie Deutsch interview. The next day a buddy of mine at SLU is telling me how he asked Allis to come to St. Louis U to give his speech/presentation. I'll post more about the event tomorrow as I am too tired to do it justice right now.

Ah, that's awesome. Let us know how the even goes. I'd love to see him speak. He sounded like a very good orator in his interview on The Big Idea.

Well the meat and potatoes of the presentation was basically an outline of his book. Allis presented with much enthusiasm and passion. This kid is a GREAT public speaker. I kinda don't want to spoil it for anyone here who gets the chance to see him. Here's a short 10 min video of him in chicago I believe. This sorta gives you a taste of his style. His presentations are about an hour long.


There ya go

Sounds like he read what I wrote here repeatedly. Perhaps I should lay off the throwing the details of my own book into the public domain until its published.

I thought the same when I read this. Exactly the same words

Hey, man, it's all about the presentation. Deliver your message in your way and it'll be fresh again.

Here is it: http://www.thefastlanetomillions.com...ad.php?p=23046

I'm going to slash my previous comments here.... I think I may have read Way to far into it.

That's what I get for multi-tasking.

LOL MJ, I've heard similar quotes from just about everyone with real world experience.
It is natural push back against the MBA guru types
that talk, talk, talk about the next big idea
like that will solve all problems.

Almost done this book
and it is a definite reco.
Well worth the dollars.

I loved that Allis uses actual numbers.
For example in the SEO section,
he talks about using your target keyword at least 5 times on the homepage.
No airy fairy use as many times as possible without irritating your readers
but hey, use it 5 times.
Right or wrong, agree or disagree, he throws it out there.

And he does that everywhere.
I like that.
Gutsy.

Like when he was talking about projections and
saying that some venture capitalists want you to miss your projections
so they have an excuse to grab a bigger piece of the company.
You and I know that happens
but no one talks about it.
Allis does.

A buy for anyone starting up a company.

Thanks for the review- I just ordered the book. I think this is exactly what I've been looking for. There is such a difference between launching a web-based company v. a B and M company, and I've been hungrily digging up any info that I can.

MJ- your phrasing was potentially copied- however, your concept of the fastlane is totally unique, and you should run as fast as you can to a publisher- because you're sitting on a giant golden egg!

I've been away for the passed week in Mexico, and I read about 3/4 of this book.

Very good, IMO. I like the specifics he uses. He's not afraid to share the details of the numbers that he uses, and that helps paint the picture a bit better.

I definitely recommend the book. He's a VERY bright kid with a good message and good intentions as well.

After reading this thread while killing time between classes at the library, I decided to check it out. A few hours later, I am immersed in part II of the book. Absolute fantastic read for someone aspiring to create a company.

You should check out one of his seminars he does on college campuses. They're free I believe and he's one hell of a public speaker.

The seminar's basically outline the principals in the book, but still very well worth it. Enjoy the rest of the book.

Dang. My copy is sitting on the shelf at home!

Absolutly agree. Many people have ideas. Many people also have great ideas. But without a great management team it is hard to succeed. You need experienced people helping you out doing the hard parts (running the business).

As I mentioned in a previous post. The two things that needs to be in place before raising capital is a proven concept (people are willing to buy your product/service for a price you have set) and you also need a good management team doing the day-to-day work to accomplish the goal of building this company to a 5 star status.

The worst thing a start-up entrepreneur can have is "ego". In the build up phase you are only there to test your great idea in the market and then find the right managers to run the company. Then you contact financiers and sell the whole idea to them (have them invest in your company so that the company can pay salaries etc). Then you move to the next idea and let the managers work their "magic".

Position youself as Chairman so that you don't lose control over the company entirely. It is still your idea and you need to defend it (if you are not the Chairman, then other people can issue shares over your head. Not good at all. That is how you lose control).