There was this guy who had grown up very poor. He was quite smart and his parents did their best to nurture his curious nature. The boy himself was phenomenally self-disciplined and created his own small business before he was fifteen. He was then forced to give up his little venture and all seemed lost. Except then the young man leaped across the tracks to save a boy from an oncoming train.

"While the non-adult contingent safely play with e-commerce, we gamble it all on the one thing that people want to buy."

The saved boy’s father was so grateful that as payment he taught our young hero a new and exciting form of scientific communication/transmission. The clever fellow saw the importance of this worldwide communications system and managed to get a job in the field. While he toiled, he dabbled in new inventions and chatted with his peers on the wired network. He was very close to a breakthrough invention when a fellow friend and technician scooped him. Disheartened and close to being fired from his day job, the young fellow borrowed $35.00 from a colleague in order to leave everything and take a chance on New York City.

Three weeks after our protagonist arrived in NY, NY, he was penniless and starving. While wandering around some spaces in the business district, he came upon an office in frenzy. A vital piece of communications equipment had broken down and nobody knew how to fix it. The handy young man jumped right into the hysteria and repaired the machine on the spot. The office manager was so grateful he hired the kid to be in charge of all the repairs for the firm. Our genius had finally achieved the financial stability he’d always desired.

Because of these circumstances and the drive of one young man to succeed, the world is a better place. That young man was Thomas A. Edison. He went on to invent the phonograph, the talking picture, the incandescent light bulb and the system we now use to generate and distribute electrical power to homes and businesses across the entire planet. He was a hell of a man during a hell of a time.

Right now is a hell of a time.

The question is are you a hell of a person? Granted, very few of us are geniuses. All of us are involved in a field whose achievements probably won’t be historically recognized. For all our innovation, it’s likely not one of us will attain even a minute portion of the reverence history has for Edison. In spite of our shortcomings, most of the members of the adult Internet industry share a common trait with good old Tom. We are gamblers.

In case you’ve forgotten, the majority of people in the world don’t know jack-shit about computers or how the web works. Most people are totally afraid of their machines and unwilling to learn how to master them. They ascertain enough savvy to play some games and get and AOL account so they can connect to the net. They’re so busy gawking at the darned monitor and playing in chatrooms, they can’t even see the financial life-changing potential of the miracle that is the home computer.

Of those that do see, a tiny fraction of them are willing to make the effort to build a web business. A still smaller percentage of those PC entrepreneurs take up the profession of Internet porn peddler. Then subtract the many that quit cyberporn because they can’t cut the mustard. Tally up and you’ve got a hell of a community in a hell of a time all doing a hell of a thing.

We are more like Edison than our mainstream counterparts in that we instinctively follow his basic rule:

“Never waste time inventing things that people would not want to buy.”

While the non-adult contingent safely play with e-commerce, we gamble it all on the one thing that people want to buy. We risk our friendships, family and social standing with what we do. We spend our free hours and spare change on whatever will improve our adult websites. We’re willing to quit secure jobs and take up the life in spite of the odds against new business success. And because we’re the only ones consistently making money from the net, we are its ultimate beta testers. We invent the marketing techniques. We debug the billing software. We troubleshoot the streaming software for everyone else. We are paving the roads that others will travel because we‘re inclined to risk the journey.

The next time that flash of brilliance strikes you, don’t just let the sensation pass. When you propose your clever new scheme, don’t let fear mongers or naysayers hold you back from taking a chance. If your concern is a simple thing like buying an account with your first paid host, consider what $35.00 did for Thomas A Edison. You can buy a small virtual hosting package for almost one seventh that of the loan which changed the life of a man and the world. The time is now to be brave. Play the game and gamble with all you’ve got if you believe that your idea is worthy.

You’re already taking a chance. Whatever your dream, you’ll never find better odds than at this hell of a time.