Around 1992, my friend and I started doing desktop database apps as a side gig while we worked at a consulting firm doing IT. We decided to do this full time. W

Around 1992, my friend and I started doing desktop database apps as a side gig while we worked at a consulting firm doing IT. We decided to do this full time. With connections in the music industry, we started doing websites and online stores for some big names like Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Phish, and others. By then there were about 5-6 of us, working out of my friend's house. We weren't real employees, and only got paid when my friend walked into the room and started handing out $50 bills. Our online stores morphed into an award-winning product for small and medium-sized merchants, that you could pick up for $19.99 at Staples, CompUSA, etc. In 1996 we incorporated, and I was hired as the first official employee/lead programmer. I think I was making about $50K by then; we had grown and moved into a real office. A couple of years later, we had the first single-shopping-cart online mall. I was making $85K. We had almost 70 employees. In 2000, a Canadian company bought us for $45M and I was given another raise to almost $110K, but then things fell apart quickly. The last 6-8 months I was basically paid to drink coffee and sit around. By 2001 we were kaput. My 60,000 stock options, when I could finally do anything with them were worth about $1200, down from an initial value of ~1.8M CAD. I had bought a truck, and had put a downpayment on my house, but that was about it. I flailed around for a few years looking for programming work, and then got the job I have now, doing IT at a local University. I'm making about $50K again :/ It was a lot of work, with (mostly) great people, and for a while we were on top of the world. In some ways you could say we were Amazon before Amazon. If we hadn't gone under, Amazon probably would have bought us. Perchance to dream..