How Amos Windbush III started a business with $250 and now earns $13.5 million a year

The career path for Amos Windbush III was not clear-cut and laid out from the start. He spent quite a long time singing R&B tunes behind microphones before he became a household name. However, an uneventful accident that caused him to lose 150 contacts and other relevant data on his first-generation iPhone became the launchpad of his journey into entrepreneurship.

He felt that if he could lose songs he had worked so hard for without any chance of retrieving them, then a sizable percentage of the millions of mobile device users could be experiencing the same challenge. This became his source of inspiration for setting up CyberSynchs, a $13.5 million annual mobile phone backup server company.

In early 2008, Windbush was a singer and songwriter moving from studio to studio, working 14 hours a day on his debut album. After the regrettable experience with his mobile phone, he spoke to his business manager about starting a business that will synchronize the data on his phone to other devices and make it retrievable in the case of an accident.

Through research, he settled on a software engineer who translated his foresight into a business. It actually took him only $250 dollars to start up the company, which was used in registering the business. Many of the staff he worked with at the early stages of the business were not paid. In the case of his Chief Technology Officer, Tyler Thackery, Windbush promised to grant him equity and reimburse him when the business became profitable.

In the initial stages of the business, Windbush supported himself with the savings he made from the music business. He had a discussion with his wife about the financial challenges his decision could bring and to his expectation, she supported him through the long haul. As a PR executive, she brought her expertise to bear in promoting the tech company.

Though a novice in running a business, in the first two weeks of the launch of CyberSynchs, Windbush had 13,000 subscribers. He leveraged the power of the local dailies in New York to tell his story and why people needed to sign up on the Platform. Shreveport Times run a full-page story on his article and before he realized it, the server was witnessing sporadic sign-ups.

The only challenge he faced was the limited capacity the server could host, which was 15,000 subscribers, and he already had 13,000 already on. He feared it could crash and cause a PR crisis for his business, as he had promised to keep the data of individuals safe and secure, and could not risk disappointing them, according to eventual millionaires. However, he was able to expand the capacity of the server when he engaged the services of some tech experts.

After years of running the tech company, Windbush believes passion is not enough to run a business. It requires a lot of planning to be successful, without it, the startup is bound to fail. He notes that in running a business, people must accept they will encounter rejection, and should avoid the view that they are disliked or their business plan is unappreciated.