The Tycoon Report

Life as a Tech Insider

Wednesday, December 20, 2006 | Wayne Mulligan

Ever since I started writing for the Tycoon Report, and especially after launching Tech Stock Insider, I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from folks asking me, “Wayne, how did you get involved in the tech space?  Why should I trust you to give me advice in this sector?”

Now, those are very valid questions – I mean, I write here every week, toss out a recommendation every now and again, but you don’t really know much about where I’m from or what I’ve done to get to this point in my life.

A little background information is in order – I think it’ll give you a little more perspective on where I’m coming from and why I can confidently say that if you have any money invested in the tech sector, you’ll be much better off listening to what I have to say.

I know that may sound arrogant – or confident, depending on how you look at it – but I can truly say that I’ve seen this business from every angle, and I don’t care if I’m talking to a regular investor on Wall Street or Bill Gates himself – I’ll hold my own!

So I’m going to give you a quick three-act story of my life since I’ve been involved in this fantastic – and sometimes dramatic – sector.

So without further ado…

Life as “Techie”– Act I

Let me start from the beginning… let me bring you back a number of years to when “Wayne Mulligan – Chief Investment Officer of Tech Stock Insider”, was just “Wayne Mulligan – High School Freshman”.

It seems like ages ago, but I vividly remember that year because that’s when I was first introduced to the wonderful world of software development – in other words, I had no social life so I sat in my house all day banging away at my keyboard trying to make “cool” programs.

After about a year of honing my development skills – in other words, still no social life – I decided to begin e-mailing owners of different software companies and just flat out ask for a job…no resume, no work experience, nothing!

I just had a heck of a lot of confidence – or maybe ignorance – but in any case, my pitch went something like this:

“Dear Mr. So-and-so:  My name is Wayne Mulligan and I’m a software engineer based in New York.  I have a lot of experience building applications in Visual Basic, and I think I could really help your company out.  I’ve attached a sample of my work.”

Mind you, this was back when people weren’t afraid to download stuff that came through their e-mail.

Now, I thought I was just grasping at straws here – I was a 15-year-old, pimply faced kid, and the only “real” work experience I had up until that time was serving bagels at the local bagel shop.

And while putting just the right amount of creamed cheese on somebody’s morning poppy seed bagel was a big responsibility, I certainly had a lot to learn about what it would take to cut it in the “real world”.

But, lo and behold, I get an e-mail back from one of the largest add-on developers for America Online…from the President himself no less.

He tells me he really liked my program and would love to set up a time to have a call with me.

A call with me!?

I had to actually get on the phone with the owner of this company?  I could barely muster the courage to talk to Susan Dispenza (the girl in my 3rd period math class who I had the biggest crush on.)  How was I going to talk to the owner of a multi-million dollar company?

I guess when I started sending those e-mails, I really didn’t think anyone would get back to me, let alone take me seriously enough to “have a call with me”.

Well, to make a long story short, I had a few great phone conversations with the president of this company, and the rest is history…the end…

Just kidding…

Needless to say, everything went very well, and I’ll even fast forward a year for the sake of brevity.

One Year Later

I finally asked Susan out on a date – it becomes easier when you’re the only kid in school making more money than the teachers!

And from a business perspective, things couldn’t have been going better. 

Not only was I heading up my own product development initiatives, the products I had already created were selling like hotcakes.

All told, I had probably added over $1 million in revenue to the firm’s top line since joining – things were fantastic!

I really didn’t think it could get much better than that…but then lightning struck…again!

The next thing I knew, the entire tech space was on fire and companies were e-mailing me on a regular basis asking me to come work for them.

I was getting six-figure job offers when I had barely begun high school – it was pure insanity!

But who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? 

However, now that I had more work than I could handle, I was starting to feel the heat.

Luckily for me I had a family friend who had been entrenched in the tech business before it even had a name – he was one of the early employees at Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) and had done very well for himself.

So I decided to give him a call and see what he thought about all of this – it was a bit overwhelming for a 16-year-old to have to deal with.  Most of my peers only had to worry about Friday’s Spanish quiz.

I had to worry about debugging code and making sure the customer support staff was aware of a particular “subclassing” problem that I was on the verge of fixing.

So my family friend, Victor, told me that I should “stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an employer.”

If I was really getting all of this work thrown at me, why shouldn’t I take all of it on?  Why shouldn’t I make all the money I possibly could?

Good question, but there was only one problem…There was only one of me, and I was barely keeping up with the workload I already had.  Victor’s point exactly!

So the next thing I knew, I was incorporating my own company, raising money from an angel investor and hiring employees that were all almost twice my age.

And that’s when things got really exciting!

But you’ll have to wait until next week for Act II.

Have a great week, and a very Happy Holidays to you and yours!




Wayne Mulligan
Contributing Editor
The Tycoon Report