GREAT IDEAS AND GREAT EXECUTION

Damn Tim Ferriss. His bestselling book, The 4-Hour Workweek, popularized the idea of being your own boss, avoiding the rat race, shooting the alarm clock, and watching zeroes accumulate in your bank account. While this lifestyle is certainly appealing, most business owners know that making it happen isn't nearly as simple as setting up a shopping cart on your homepage. If an entrepreneur doesn't need to wake up to an alarm, it's probably because he never went to sleep.

Creating, and operating, a profitable business takes significant effort and dedication. That said, Tim provided a real service in spreading the word that it's not nearly as complicated to pull off as most people assume. Armand Morin is living proof that it's possible and is a self-made multimillionaire. His company, which has only eight people on staff, has grossed over $85 million to date.

His secret: Simplicity, and capitalizing on what's next. These two powerful pillars have been Armand's mantra throughout his stellar business career.

Armand Morin: Perpetual Pioneer

In 1995, telecommunications was red-hot, especially pre-paid phone cards and long-distance aggregators. Seizing the opportunity, Armand created a telecom company that provided long-distance discount services. Within 10 months his business grossed almost $2 million in sales. While impressive, Armand heard gold jingling in the beeps and hisses of his 14.4 modem and sold his telecom venture to concentrate on the forthcoming Internet wave.

Armand's first online venture reinvented the traditional advertising structure. As he was surfing the web he stumbled upon a site that provided links from a directory-based page to other sites. Site owners paid $20 to have the link created and no performance guarantee or representation of traffic was provided. The idea intrigued him and he sought to replicate the model. Using an AOL website builder to launch his first page, he began to market his service online.

The year was 1996 and, at the time, there were few options for driving traffic to one's site. Given that thousands of pages were being created daily, the opportunity to provide low cost exposure was appealing. In his first week, Armand earned more than $8,000. Unfortunately, current automation technologies and financial tools didn't exist. For instance, he couldn't accept credit cards. When customers wanted to buy advertising, they'd have to send him a check. He'd then have to wait for the check to clear before undertaking the arduous process of entering each link by hand.

Given the significant volume of business Armand had generated, this took a great deal of time. Armand responded by hiring data entry workers and also by developing proprietary software to simplify the process. As traffic online increased, sites that offered free products such as calendars and business-related reports gained in popularity. Search engines, however, were just in their infancy. During Armand's detailed study of the Internet, he'd created more than 600 bookmarks for sites that offered customers free products and resources. After organizing the sites into categories, he offered the list for sale ... for $110.

He sold 100 in the first week. Traffic spiked from there. Eventually, the site attracted over two million visitors per month. In just 12 weeks, his company grossed over $4 million.

Tools Equal Jewels

Sometimes when things are going most smoothly, life puts a speed bump in front of you. While Armand was driving traffic and sales online with breathtaking success, trouble was brewing.

As funds poured in, Armand's bank shut him down and froze access to his accounts. Why? Because they assumed such a massive flow of cash must be the result of illegal activities. Nothing, however, was even remotely illegal about Armand's operation. Regardless, they wouldn't listen and put millions into deep freeze. At this point, some might have thrown in the towel while crying about grossly unfair treatment. Not Armand. He immediately sought to create effective tools to help others avoid the same fate. There were two glaring issues that needed to be addressed:

• Accepting credit cards.

• Gaining access to a merchant processing service that would release funds earned.

Armand started devouring as much information as he could find on the subjects. From white papers on merchant accounts and credit card processing to industry reports on available software and forthcoming technologies, he absorbed a huge amount of knowledge, and boiled down the most critical facts into an easy to understand report.

Armand recognized many site owners and IT professionals would directly benefit from his research. Believing he had a potentially lucrative product, he next sought a streamlined way to deliver it. Printing and mailing paper-based books was expensive and time-consuming. It was also difficult to create interim updates for information that might change over time. Nowadays, Armand could have simply used a PDF. In 1996, the format did not yet have mainstream acceptance.

The solution? He developed software that opened an .exe file containing several HTML documents. In other words, he created a browser that was built specifically for the purpose of reading his report. It was one of the first ebooks ever released.

These endeavors marked the start of Armand's online empire. By leveraging the knowledge gained through his early experiences, he was in strong position to propel his company forward. He remains front and center.

Ideation Is Priority #1

Product creation is paramount to achieving massive success and, while execution is important, you first need an idea. Armand is a master at creating products that sell. Those last two words are especially important. People are often struck by bouts of inspiration and spend significant time and resources bringing their ideas to fruition. Unfortunately, most ideas aren't commercially viable and many have wasted thousands of dollars creating products that collect dust in a garage.

The key is to create a product that meets an...