How A Kid Funded VoodooPC With His Credit Card And Sold It To HP – with Rahul Sood
If you like this program, you should thank Rahul on Twitter.
At 17-years-old, he couldn’t legally drink, vote or even sign a contract, but that didn’t stop Rahul Sood from launching a company. He just did it. He didn’t have much money, but that didn’t stop him either. He got a credit card and took out $1,500. Most people assume they need to raise venture capital to build a tech business. Rahul couldn’t get it, but he didn’t need it. His computer business, VoodooPC, was profitable from the start — and it remained profitable when he sold it to HP.
Want to know why HP (or the other giant computer makers) didn’t crush him? Because he noticed that they were outdoing each other trying to produce cheaper (and less profitable) computers, so he decided to grab the high end of the market. (His most expensive PC sold for over $50,000.) Want to know how he made money? By developing his sales abilities, skills that colleges hold in such low esteem that they refuse to even teach it. Want to know more? Listen to the full interview.
I slowed the conversation down a lot so we could get into deep details here because I want you to be able to use the lessons that Rahul worked so hard to learn, not just bliss out on hearing a success story.
Rahul Sood is the founder of luxury computer designer VoodooPC, which was established in 1991 and acquired by HP in 2006. Today he’s HP’s Chief Technology Officer, Global Gaming Business Unit, Personal Systems Group. He’s also an investor who’s trades you can follow on Bulls on Wall Street.
Andrew: All right. I just finished recording the interview you’re about to watch, but before I post it, I have to tell you about my three sponsors. And by the way, this is an interview with a guy, who at 17 years old, using $1500 on his credit card, built Voodoo PC into this profitable, consistently profitable PC company that he eventually sold to HP. Great story. And you’ll hear, I’ve got to thank my sponsors before I start it, but you can hear me talk about one of my sponsors, Grasshopper. I’ve opened up a Grasshopper phone number, and made myself available to people like you, to talk about your business issues with me. And it’s helped me become a better interviewer because it’s helped me ask questions that are important to you. So thank you, Grasshopper, twice. And of course, Grasshopper is the robust phone system that you can manage online. I also have to thank Shopify. I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people who used...
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