My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [78]
The owner of the business was very successful. He had three houses, six cars, and retail stores in several cities. It was clear that what he was doing was somehow legal, because he’d been in business for ten years and wasn’t hiding his services. After working for him a while, I figured I could make more if I could figure out how he was legally making these ID cards. I quit the job and hit the books.
After three months of research, I learned how my old boss was creating these ID cards legally. It came down to exactly what was printed on the ID, how they were packaged, and a few other small but critical details. By knowing these details and strictly following the letter of the law, my old boss was able to stay in business by legally producing novelty IDs. About this time, the Internet was beginning to take off. I thought the Web might be the perfect way to sell my own ID cards.
AN ID IS BORN
By age seventeen, I knew how to legally design ID cards, how to build a good Web site, and how to operate a business. I went to college the next year ready to launch my ID card enterprise. What better place to launch this business than a college of fifty thousand students, about half of whom were underage?
I made ten sample ID cards, punched a hole in their corner, and put them on a metal ring. These were my display models. I then went dorm to dorm across the college peddling my ID cards. Wherever I went doors were slammed in my face, students told me I must be an undercover cop, and some said their buddy down the hall made better ones. I kept knocking.
My Web site went live one month later. The first week I got one order by mail. The next week I got ten. Two weeks after that I got forty Internet orders.
By the end of my first year in business, my little dorm-room ID card company had generated about $500,000 in sales! It was costing me around fifteen cents to make each card and I was selling them for $100 or more.
With such a profitable first year, I moved out of my dorm and into a fancy condo. I bought the biggest TV I could find, a huge saltwater aquarium, European leather couches, and the loudest stereo the electronics store had for sale. Life was amazing!
FROM BOOM TO DOOM
In my second year of business, my ID card company brought in almost $1,000,000 in sales! As rich as I was becoming, it was annoying having to constantly explain how what I was doing was not immoral, unethical, or illegal.
After two years of easy money and constant explanations, the discomfort I felt about the behaviors I might be enabling became overwhelming. What most ate at me was the idea of a minor using my ID card to buy alcohol, drive drunk, and then cause a car wreck that kills innocent people. I started thinking about closing the business all the time, but I was making thousands a week. Eventually, though, the money was worth less to me than having a clear conscience.
I was twenty years old. I had money. I could do what I wanted. I had invested in a start-up Internet venture and was excited about its potential. I had learned so much that I was ready to use. I decided to close my business on March 30, 1999.
But twenty days before I was going to close shop, I was out for coffee when I got a phone call from my neighbor. She told me that twelve federal agents had just busted down my front door with their guns drawn. She said it was like being in the TV show Cops.
The agents spent nine hours searching my condo. They took everything from my stereo speakers to the cash in my safe. I didn’t know what to do, so I went to my lawyer’s office. I sat on his couch scared out of my mind the entire day.
I had no idea if I was going to be arrested, interrogated, or what. All I knew was that I must be in big trouble. My lawyer learned that the FBI had a search warrant for my house but no arrest warrant for me—yet.
With my condo trashed, I stayed at my parents’ house for two weeks. I’ll never forget seeing so much pain in my parents’ eyes. My selfish business decision was torturing them as much as me.
PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
Three months after the