John Dimmer

John Dimmer came in to my entrepreneurship class as a guest speaker. He and my professor have a long history together, being that they both started up Free Range Media together. But before that, he got a degree in finances and, although he wanted to run his own company, he didn’t feel ready to do so and instead he got a job at the Puget Sound Bank. He didn’t like the seniority there though, so after two years he left and joined the Sherty Bound work force instead, which was a mix of commercial lending and insurance. When he was finally ready to start his own company, John didn’t know what to start so he went into winery and insurance agencies for some good ideas. While he was searching for some inspiring idea for his own company, his cousin, Dave Spool, had already done a business called SPRY, which sold “internet in a box”. He asked John to be a beta tester for him. John agreed, and loved the idea of the internet and saw so much potential in it. That’s when my professor came in from Microsoft and said he’d always wanted to do something with multi-media, they discussed it and that’s when they started Free Range Media. John retired at the age of 30, but was so bored with his life because he had all this free time in the world but all his other friends were still out working and couldn’t golf with him or anything. I thought that was pretty interesting, because it shows how there’s good things about being successful at a young age and also bad things about it.