How Jay Walker Became A Billionaire In One Year
Jay Walker was a self-made billionaire and one of the most popular business entrepreneurs and inventors in America. The billionaire is responsible for founding numerous successful start-ups that to date serve millions of clients in various industries. He is the chairman of Walker Digital. It is a privately held R&D lab based in Stamford, Connecticut founded in 1994.
Walker Digital has been behind the creation of numerous solutions for an extensive variety of business difficulties. The firm primarily specializes in coming up with innovative applications that work with large-scale networks like the internet and cell phones.
Here's the secret how he made billion of dollars
1) He started Business while still Young
Born on 5th November 1955 in Yonkers, New York, Walker always showcased his entrepreneurial spirit even at a young age. Walker had started a business of hawking jelly, seeds, and candles door-door. Later, he started delivering newspapers in all types of weather using his bike to cover four miles.
2) He Launched a Free Weekly Paper
While still studying at the university, he dropped out briefly to launch a weekly paper in Ithaca that people did not have to buy as it was available at no cost. He claims that he was in charge of overseeing 175 that he was paying and the paper was reaching a circulation of 25,000. His competitors ran him out of business by producing their weekly forcing him to go back to school.
3) He is an Avid Book Collector
Jay started his collection of books and historic artifacts long before his Priceline days. Jay had a significant success before Priceline, in new sub services, sold to Time Warner and renamed the Synapse group.
4) He made it to the Billionaire Club Quickly
One of the leading lights of the dot-com boom, Jay was the man behind the foundation of the highest flying internet firm. It introduced a one of a kind marketing method that the company called buyer-driven commerce. Here consumers would take advantage of the internet to name the cost that they would be willing to pay for specific products. Their offers would be accepted or rejected. Example: an application allowing travellers to offer low prices on airline tickets that the airline would accept if seats remained vacant.In 1999 Priceline.com started out by selling airline tickets and later expanded to the sale of groceries and gasoline. He made $1.8 billion net worth (on paper, but never in assets) after just one year in early 2000. He later sold all his stake to Hong Kong Investors.
5) His name is on numerous International Patents
It was in 1994 that his most illustrious of business ventures came to light in the name of Walker Digitals. They envisioned this by sourcing and innovating ideas to create applications that provide business solutions. It is for this reason that he has been dubbed as the 'Edison for new age', for Edison brought scientists together to create solutions at a time when scientific discovery was a solitary affair.
Instead of creating products from scratch, they bought patents of business ideas and software from companies auctioning their assets. Every business first needs an idea and then the software to run it, and Walker wanted to ‘collect’ as many as he could to fuel his startups.His idea was to aggregate patents so he could reinvent businesses. By the late 1990s, he had about 240 pending patents on several ideas.
But how did he conceive this business model? Walker once chanced upon a journal article on banking systems that transferred large sums of money securely using public key cryptography. The algorithm backing this was developed by three mathematicians who patented it and started a company over it.This is when Walker realised that patent law protected not only products but also concepts, ideas and their applications.Walker Digital’s journey of idea acquisitions, and innovations, thus began with this idea.
Acquiring patents, and in heaps as Walker did, comes with a sly advantage. Having intellectual property rights gives one the power to file lawsuits against companies that, without their knowledge, violate it. Walker Digitals has been alleged to collect a majority of their revenues from such lawsuits, giving them the infamous title of a ‘patent troll’. The company has sued Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon and Google. Its boldest lawsuit till date has been against Facebook.Walter Digitals claimed that they owned the patent for a process that allowed users to disclose their personal information only upon request, a.k.a “friending”.
Walker Digitals also contributed to gaming technology with Perfect Pay Baccarat, an application that increased game security and dealer accuracy, and minimised discrepancies. Their partnership with International Gaming Technology (IGT) was a significant move as IGT is the world’s largest manufacturer of casino games.
Walker believed that one should “be recognised for your intellectual achievement.”This was a vision he held on to because Walker Digitals, with its controversial business model, came to be known for just that.
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