Ryan Allis, young entrepreneur, shares his story

Most people seem to go through life with blinders on, failing to take account of those people or experiences that have taught valuable lessons. They neglect the opportunities presented before them and lack the proactive desire to turn their dreams into reality. Then again, most people are not business entrepreneurs, and most people are certainly not Ryan Allis, the 23-year-old entrepreneur who is now the CEO of iContact, a company which provides online tools for small business owners.

Allis began at age 11, as a computer consultant in Western Florida. The idea came to him after he received a computer as a gift. Allis began advertising around the neighborhood with fliers and got his first customer in the summer of 1995. This early experience taught him that "word-of-mouth marketing is the best kind of marketing because it is trusted and free." Allis continued to help his neighbors with computer problems for the next few summers until Lois, a flight attendant in the area, asked him to help her build a Web site in order to sell freshwater pearls. While Lois enjoyed this side business, she was wary of hiring employees to help her expand the company.

Eventually, Lois let the domain for this business expire, and it was not until later that Allis learned that another company had purchased the Web site and had become the second-largest seller of freshwater pearls in the country. After this experience, Allis learned that an entrepreneur can never be afraid to hire some help in order to expand.

At the age of 17, Allis became the marketing vice president for a health company, and it was through his work with another entrepreneur that he learned the "nitty gritty" skills of business-building, like how to expand outside capital and how to properly market a product. The next year, Allis graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. From the time he set foot on campus, Allis was determined to become an entrepreneur; however, he found the university business classes less than exciting. It seemed as though he had gained more important knowledge during his teenage business experiences and through important books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Think and Grow Rich than in the classroom. However, Allis met his future business partner, Aaron, at UNC. Aaron had developed a Web tool, now known as iContact, which would allow a company to send newsletters to all of its employees. Although Allis admitted this was a "mediocre product," he said that the two were able to get around this by using deft Web-marketing.

All of these experiences shaped Allis and taught him valuable lessons about business and life. Allis believes that 90 percent of people want to be millionaires, but only 30 percent think that they will actually reach that goal. This disparity illustrates an important lesson: In order to achieve a goal, one must positively think that one will achieve it.

Although this idea has become quite popular within the past year due to the success of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, few adequately put the teaching into practice. For Allis, visualizing his goals was as simple as typing up a list of his short-term and long-term aspirations, framing the list, and then putting it in the closet where he would see it at least once every day.

In addition to this general suggestion, Allis also lives by 10 business laws. First, it is important to find your core motivation. For Allis, some of his motivations include loving to "play the game," creating jobs and giving back to the community, and "being part of a team that is creating a product that helps over 22,000 other businesses" (such as Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, CBS, and Vonage). Second, an entrepreneur must understand the system; Third, it is important to get out of one's comfort zone; fourth, one must evaluate the idea; fifth, the entrepreneur must decide on the entity type; sixth, the importance of fundraising or bootstrapping becomes apparent. This is one technique that Allis and his partner Aaron learned very well in their first summer together while living in a small office and eating Ramen noodles. Despite the rejection of numerous venture capitalists, the two continued to submit proposals and eventually secured funding through investors and some VC companies. Seventh, an entrepreneur must develop a sales and marketing strategy; eighth, one must build a team; ninth, the ability to manage well becomes a useful skill; and finally, an entrepreneur must build strong systems and then scale them in order to make a profit.

Allis also stresses perspective, as "entrepreneurs only in it for the money will not succeed … you need a passion and desire for something bigger than the self," Allis said. Despite his great success in the Web-tool business, Allis also runs a nonprofit corporation called The Humanity Campaign that strives to "reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to education, health care, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity in the U.S. and in developing countries like Malawi, Honduras, Guatemala, and Uganda."

All of these ideas are listed in Allis's book, Zero to One Million, which is an entrepreneurial manual. However, Allis is quick to rebuff the idea that he has developed all of this on his own. All of this has been taught to him by the great entrepreneurs of the past as well as by Fred, Lois, J.R., Mr. Fletcher, and David - the people he has worked with throughout his life. For a real successful person, these experiences are not only relegated to fond memories, but are transformed into textbook-like instructions on how to succeed. While many will take these learning experiences for granted, entrepreneurs like Ryan Allis will use them to build a small business of 90 employees that is estimated to be worth a few million dollars. Yet, his ambition has certainly not been exhausted, as he hopes to be named Time magazine's Person of the Year or actually become president of the United States. All of this is according to his framed "goals for the future list" found in his closet, which is not to be taken lightly, considering one of his early ambitions was to create a company with $1 million in sales by the time he was 20. Oh, how the time has passed.