Blockstream CEO Austin Hill on his life as a serial entrepreneur:  

He told the crowd how he created a business called “Nelson Communications”, a rip-off of Nielson, the TV-rating organization. He placed ads in newspapers across Canada (on credit) that read ““watch your favourite television shows and earn $400-$600 dollars a week watching TV. Send a self-addressed envelope with your favourite television shows listed below.” His team of friends pumping out letters in his apartment were “bombarded” with a record-setting amount of mail: the most for any single post office box in Canada at the time.

They sent letters back that said, “you’ve been selected to review the following television shows, but you have to do a training program, requiring a deposit of $49.” He enlisted the services of a PhD student in communications to make up a training booklet that included assignments like “write an essay about the roles of a protagonist and an antagonist in a modern day drama.”

“My basic thesis was this: anyone who was dumb enough to think that they could make money reviewing television shows would pay $49 dollars for a training program,” said Hill. “And anyone who is that lazy will never complete the training program. So they’d just give up and I could sell a $2 dollar training program for $49.”

It worked: he made about $100,000 in three months. (At that point the crowd gave him an ovation, which was a tad odd. My guess is that Hill probably doesn’t look back on it as his finest hour).


http://betakit.com/montreal-angel-austin-hill-failed-spectacularly-before-later-success/