John Alanis is a fairly recent addition to a long list of highly successful web entrepreneurs. He was born in 1971 in San Antonio, Texas. He attended the University of Texas in Austin using a Naval ROTC Scholarship and graduated in March of 1994 with a BS in Electrical Engineering.  Alanis spent summer between semesters in the naval fleet, with plans to become an officer after graduation.  Most of the time, Alanis sent the time underwater aboard submarines. He was even offered a place in the exclusive Naval Nuclear Power School during the spring of 1992.  Before he could be officially commissioned, Alanis was medically discharged from the service due to a medical problem found on his final physical.

Moving on, Alanis became a field engineer working for an oil field services company--which proved to be a short-lived career choice. Uncertain of next direction, he went back to Austin. There he learned that the CIA had a position open. When he failed to find a place with the agency, Alanis sought further.  He ended up starting an art business which included designing steel wall hangings and then sell his pieces at various art shows and even on the streets. The business was hardly a success and during the two year period of 1996-1998, ended up living in office space of the shop in Buda, Texas trying to make the business work.

Rather than letting his failures and poverty drag him down, John Alanis spent his free time at the University of Texas library reading book after book on the subject of making money.  In time, he came into contact with various schemes like chain letters but rather than letting the lure of possible returns draw him into the scam, Alanis researched the subject. By reading books on mail-order and information marketing, in his efforts to investigate the chain letter, he found something more valuable. Alanis found a lot of possibilities lurking with the realm of mail order business.

The major theme that Alanis began to draw from the pages of that book was a simple marketing tool. If one were to take “how to” information, whatever it may be, and turn around and put it into a book form, a course or a audio set, write a sales letter, mail it, and people would send you money. Furthermore, the more information one mailed out, the more money was made. Alanis used his existing customer base built from selling his art to experiment with the mail order techniques. It ended up working and Alanis made a sizable profit.

Next, Alanis put mail order business to work, and got Robert Redford's Sundance Catalog to put his art in their mail order catalog and eventually sold 5,000 pieces at forty dollars each.

This led to other “how to” marketing ventures which made John Alanis very successful. He turned around and began to teach others how to use the same methods that he had been using to make a profit.