Person B: Have you heard of this thing called the Internet? It's the future. You should buy as many dial-up modems as you can before the price goes up. Once the Internet becomes mainstream, we'll all be rich.
Person A: Why would the price go up?
Person B: Because adoption. Everyone will start using the Internet. You could use it to store information, transact, compute things... everything will be on the Internet.
Person A: Isn't that just computers in general?
Person B: No, unlike just your home computer, anything that is on the Internet stays there forever. It's also decentralized, meaning no one can shut it down or control it. And most importantly, it's global. Everything has to be global nowadays. That's the future. Personal computing was the first revolution. This is the next one. Imagine if you could go back in time to the 80's before personal computing was mainstream. This is that opportunity. You could buy up everything before anyone else gets a chance.
Person A: But why would modem prices go up?
Person B: There's no Internet without modems. Every person needs a modem to use the Internet.
Person A: Couldn't you just make more?
Person B: That's why you have to pick the right modem brand. Some brands inflate the supply. You should buy AOL modems. It's a fixed supply. There will never be any more AOL modems made again. It also has the highest usage and market cap.
Person A: Market cap?
Person B: You take the price of a modem and multiply by the number of modems out there.
Person A: How many AOL modems are there?
Person B: Theoretically, once the last modem in store is sold - 21 billion.
Person A: That's more than we'll ever need.
Person B: Yeah but each person can buy more than one. Some people who were early got to hoard millions of modems. People also lose their modems or their logins. Supposedly 20% of all modems right now are lost or not usable by anyone. You have to imagine a future beyond your wildest expectations where everyone and their grandma know about and use the Internet. It's hard to visualize, but that's how people felt when personal computing first started too, and now everyone has a computer in their home. Everything in the future will use the Internet in one form or another, and this is our chance to own part of that infrastructure.
Person A: So what does your startup do?
Person B: It's an Internet company.
Person A: But what does it do?
Person B: We create applications that run on the Internet. People are calling them Websites.
Person A: What kind of applications?
Person B: Anything that clients demand. We're trying to help build the Internet ecosystem. The more people we get using the Internet, the more modem prices will go up. Everyone wins. We've had clients from restaurants to banks. Everyone wants to be on the Internet now.
Person A: Why would a bank need to be on the Internet?
Person B: Banks still keep things in books and binders. We help them store things digitally on the Internet.
Person A: But couldn't you just store it on computers and digitize things in general? That would already solve the problem. What about just a database and network? Wouldn't that be faster? Also wouldn't being on the Internet put their information at risk of being hacked?
Person B: The Internet can't be hacked. Everything you read is the user getting hacked or the Website being insecure. The Internet itself has never gone down or been compromised. It is the most secure and resilient thing out there.
Person A: So what does your Website do?
Person B: We're building a revolutionary ecosystem so anyone who checks out a library book does it through the Internet, and everyone will have to use our Website to be part of that. It'll change the world.
Person A: Would I get to read the book digitally?
Person B: No, you would just log on to the Website to check it out on the Internet, but you still go to the library to pick up the book.
Person A: Why wouldn't I just go to the library and check out books the old way since I'm there anyway?
Person B: Because the Internet makes things more efficient and secure.
Person A: How does that translate to a business model for your startup?
Person B: If everyone is using our Website, then the Website has value, unimaginable value, and the price will reflect that value in the long run. Think about how many people in the world read books. Billions. Imagine if they all used the Internet. Even if every account was only worth $1, that's billions of dollars flowing through the Internet. And then think about how many books a person reads, multiply those numbers and you get trillions of dollars.
