The Modem Shark...

Back in 1994, the Internet had just reached the rural area of New Mexico where I was living at the time. I had been reading about the World Wide Web with great anticipation of its arrival.

Almost immediately I had realized all of the great opportunities that the Internet could open up for enterprising and creative individuals. Little did I know at the time though, just how much the Internet was going to affect me personally and much sooner than I would have ever imagined.

As soon as I could get Internet service I was signed up and chompin' at the bit to start surfing. It took me quite a while to get my computer configured for the slow dial-up access that was available back then (14.4 Kbps). Once I did get the connection established though, it would drop within 10 or 15 minutes - every time I logged in.

After spending a great amount of time on the telephone with my ISP's technical support department, we determined that it was the very poor conditions of my telephone service that was the culprit. I learned that in most of the rural areas of the country, the telephone lines are way past due for replacement. Most of the analog lines are corroded, and have bare spots in the insulation that allow moisture and such to wreck havoc on an Internet connection.

What I needed was some type of filtering device, something to clean up the telephone line signal. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any such device. I searched high and low throughout eastern New Mexico and west Texas but to no avail. My Internet searches were just as fruitless. It was time to take matters into my own hands and so I did.

I had dabbled in electronics off and on since the age of 12 or so, having built quite a few electronic kits and such. Although I had never gotten a Ham radio license, I did have a bunch of old electronic project books on hand that had been given me to by a friend. I started looking through those books and I found a section in one of them about signal filtering using simple electrolytic capacitors and a couple of resisters.

It wasn't long before I had built and tested several different variations of what ended up being my own unique design. After a few days, I had build a circuit that allowed me to stay connected to the Internet for as long as I wanted - no more disconnects! I was quite content with my success and had never given any thought about telling anyone else about it.

It wasn't just a few days later though that I met a young man named Paul Nelson who lived a couple of ranches over and he mentioned to me about having great difficulties staying connected to the Internet. After I told him about my little device, he got real excited about it but was also a little Leary about my claim. I told him that I would build him a unit and have him try it out.

The day after giving Paul a clone of the device that I had built for myself, I received a telephone call from him. He was very, very excited. "Tom, I can't believe this - I can stay connected to the Internet!" I was happy for Paul. It was then that Paul suggested to me that maybe I should build a bunch of my devices and sell them on the Internet. I immediately responded with all of the reasons that I couldn't do that. I didn't know how to market a product, I didn't have a Web site nor could I afford to have one created for me, and I sure didn't have any way to accept credit card payments for Internet transactions.

Paul had planted a seed though in my mind though, and that seed sorta' just took off on its own and started sprouting real quick! Before I knew it, I had taught myself how to build a crude but workable Web site, I had signed up for a credit card merchant account and I had started selling my filtering device for which I had given the name of "The Modem Shark". If you click here you can see an archived version of my original Web site.

You know, I sold those suckers to people all over the world. To Saudi Sheiks, to movie stars, to the U.S. government, to rural telephone companies, and to thousands of people all over America who had lousy telephone lines. Eventually I even got some national exposure for the device. Popular Science magazine did a small article about the Modem Shark in their July 1999 issue. Sales of that device paid our bills for a number of years and opened lots of other doors and taught me a great deal.

Here are some of the top lessons that I learned:

1. Get a patent when you invent something.
2. Hire a bookkeeper.
3. Make sure you pay all the right taxes to the I.R.S.
4. Realize that bulk orders to oversees customers are probably scams and you'll never get your money.
5. You get what you pay for in advertising.
6. Make good use of business deductions.
7. Your company's success is directly proportional to what you put into it.

I closed the business down around 2003, it was way past due for it.