On a Roll: From Hot Dog Buns to High-Tech Billions by Howard Jonas

If I could give this book six stars, I would.

This Horatio Alger autobiography, written by the man who started the telecommunications giant IDT, is one of the best books I have ever read. Expecting a self-glorifying, or at the very least, a dry book on how one man built his fortune, I was surprised by how engaging and universal this business book is. Howard Jonas takes us through his colorful life: his motivations, his beliefs, his failures and successes - Jonas reveals everything he has learned through his many entreprenuerial adventures. Driven to succeed, Jonas began his business journeys in junior high with a hot dog stand, which he pieced together with an old baby carriage and miscellaneous bric-brac from his parents' garage. Owning his own business for several summers whetted Jonas' appetite for further enterprises. Before the age of 21, Jonas left the hot dog business and started an advertising business, a publishing firm, a New York City touring company, a brochure delivery business, and mail order businesses in personalized astrological charts, bonsai trees, decorated Christmas trees, and perfume. His kaleidoscopic need to capitalize on money-making ideas was met with both success and failure, which has lent to his myriad nuggets of wisdom.

Unlike many of America's CEOs, Howard Jonas wasn't born priveleged. He worked his way to the top with the help of his business acumen, his good sense of humor, his down-to-earth attitude, his zest for life and his sense of compassion. A Harvard student, Jonas grew disgruntled at the old boys' network and hypocrisy entrenched in the Ivies...As he writes in his third chapter, Rejecting Harvard:

"One last word on the problem of living in two worlds at the same time. Toward the end of my first year at Harvard, the Crimson (the official school newspaper) decided to do a story on student entrepreneurs attending the college. They were able to identify three. One was me.

"Another student, who had gone into the stock brokerage business, was doing it the Harvard way. Football team jocks were selling his stock, economy majors were doing the analysis. English lit people were turning out the sales literature, and everyone was maintaining a full academic schedule. This was a pure Harvard operation. I mean, even when you went into his beautiful offices overlooking Harvard Square, the receptionist who greeted you was a Harvard cheerleader.

"I heard from the guy years later. Things hadn't turned out so well for him at Harvard, and now he was down on his luck again, trying to sell salvage rights for abandoned oil wells.

"Oh, what about the third guy? Well, he was smart. He realized you couldn't live in two worlds. He forgot about his Harvard degree and what that and all the Harvard contacts could mean to his career, and just dropped out. I knew some of his friends, but I never met him. I heard he was trying to get some of them to be partners and leave school with him. Maybe if he'd asked me, I would have gone. Too bad. Oh, his name? Bill Gates."

Jonas explains why he dropped out of Harvard and how it was one of the best choices he had ever made. He didn't wheel-and-deal to the top with fancy suits and false impressions. IDT was always - and continues to be - a down-to-earth, no-nonsense, blue-jean company. Although he easily could, Jonas doesn't wear expensive suits, drive a luxury car or own a flashy home. He has felt more in common with the struggling underdogs than the privileged winners, as he explains in chapter nine:

"My new teacher again called my parents in because I wasn't living up to my potential. At this point, my father took two new approaches. First, he informed her that I was, in fact, performing way above my potential. In fact, he assured her, I really did not have potential, but was gifted in making people think that I did. Second, he drove me down to the Bowery (the section of New York where drunken vagrants live on the street begging for coins from motorists) so I could see what I would amount to if I didn't start shaping up in school. The trip, however, had an unanticipated effect on me. I didn't at all see these men as worthless vagrants. Rather, I saw them as fellow nonconformists who had been beaten down by teachers, the boys in the firth grade, the grapefruit girl, and all my other enemies who only wanted to marginalize people. These were my friends. Someday I would liberate them. For now, though, I demanded we stop the car so I could give them all the money I had.

"None of these experiences, however, in any way broke my spirit. I simply refused to accept the values or judgments of the world around me. In order to keep any self-esteem, I had to retreat into my own fantasy world, where everything was good and everything was possible. I actually saw everybody's rejection and disapproval as some kind of necessary character-building I had to go through before I could achieve something great and show everyone they were wrong about me all along. I also became a person who never gave up. In my own mind I would glamorize every failure as some kind of valiant effort against all odds, laudable just for the attempt....I'd also romanticize every small success as a major step in my inevitable march to some kind of great glory. Thus, for close to ten years following college, when my main business consisted of driving around all night delivering brochures to hotel lobbies, worrying that my old van would conk out, thus killing the business, I imagined myself not as the truck driver I really was, but as an advertising mogul building a solid base for a future display advertising empire and beyond.

"Of course, I realized I might always stay a deliveryman. Even worse, I knew I could even lose that. I might lose my brochure clients and then I'd be a complete zero. Even when things started to get better, I was always aware that just one misstep and it could all be over.

"When you've been on the bottom for so long, it's hard to take success seriously. When people start calling you "Mr. Jonas" instead of "Howard", it's sort of surreal. When you see your picture on the front page of the New York Times or have people treat you with all kinds of respect because they read about you in Business Week or Forbes, it's hard to take it seriously after so many years. It's strange that people think you're unusual because you don't lock yourself away in a fancy corner office, still wear blue jeans to work, and answer your own phone. Really, nothing's changed from getting chased home from school, booed off the stage, or working as a deliveryman. But the breaks have gone my way, so the fantasies are becoming true. Still, I know only too well that it might not have gone that way and even now it could reverse. That's why I find it much easier to relate to those whom society calls "losers rather than the "winners." Frankly, I think we have a lot more in common."

Jonas furthers the excitement by taking the reader on the rollercoaster ride of IDT's breakthrough in the telecommunications market. His endless battles with the AT&T's former monopoly read like the biblical story of David and Goliath. (IDT still owns the number 1-800-SCREW-AT&T). IDT became one of the first telecommunications companies to offer fair, competitive rates to consumers, which only happened after an immense struggle. At the same time, most companies were being swallowed whole, like little minnows to AT&T's whale, but IDT managed to stay afloat and thrive. Jonas explains how and why.

"On a Roll" is an incredible book: it is well-written, well-organized, full of substance, wisdom, humorous anecdotes, and religious fables, all woven together seamlessly by a first-time author. I felt very inspired and read the book quickly. Jonas is my new hero and "On a Roll" is an amazing book, one that I not only highly recommend but, for all of its wisdom, will definitely read again. - Katharina Woodworth, Web Editor

Table of Contents

Prologue: Slaying the Meligoth
Chapter One: One Finger for Onions
Chapter Two: I Want to Live!
Chapter Three: Rejecting Harvard
Chapter Four: Back to the Gutter
Chapter Five: One Step Above the Pushcart
Chapter Six: Gold in the Sewer
Chapter Seven: Conducting the Orchestra
Chapter Eight: Us Against the World's Phone Monopolies
Chapter Nine: Raising Money
Chapter Ten: 1-800-SCREW-AT&T
Chapter Eleven: Free the Internet!
Chapter Twelve: It Could Always Be Worse
Chapter Thirteen: Secrets of the Street
Chapter Fourteen: The Great Comeback
Epilogue: On a Roll
Afterword
Acknowledgments

Amazon: $24.95
Powell's: $14.00