"Soon after, one my clients, a very large and successful commercial property owner hired me to manage one of his neighborhood entrances. It was cold, the ground was hard as rock and I just could not get a shovel into the frozen ground to dig a hole. My helper (who I later sold the company to) also tried and stopped quickly after hitting frozen ground as well. We had not gotten anything done when the owner pulled up and asked why the job wasn't done. We told him that the ground was frozen solid. So this 70-year-old man, Bob Sinner, opened up the trunk of his Mercedes, grabbed a shovel and proceeded to dig the hole! I learned then to stop making excuses and that if you pushed through the pain or a a rough situation, you could come out strong on the other side," Folkening said. 

"My world changed forever that day and it has been the hardest thing in my life to deal with," Folkening said. "All plans stopped and I just got by the remainder of the year with the help of the friends and great clients I had. That life changing experience, along with my own accident the year before, were the pivotal moments in my life."

"After deciding to quit college early, running a business and losing my brother I was looking for a new direction, "Folkening said. "I decided to get my bartenders license and wanted to spend the winters somewhere warm, work at night, hang out on the beach and just read, play pool and learn from the street. I had a bartending job lined up in Miami so while on my way from Indiana to Florida, I stopped at a friend’s campus at Florida State University in Tallahhassee. I figured it would make a good pit stop. When I got there we went out and noticed a vacant fraternity house on campus had a sign on it saying “For Sale or Lease.”

"I immediately had a vision and saw an opportunity," Folkening said. "I always had a passion for real estate. This was 1994 and I was using Earthlink for my internet access. I knew the Internet was going to be huge but at that time I was really focused on this piece of real estate. So I spent the next three months sleeping on my friend’s couch, putting together a business plan and pursuing a deal. The building had a $665,000 price tag but with the renovations we needed to make it would end up costing $1.2 million." That is obviously a lot of money but Folkening had crunched the numbers and was confident the property would generate enough revenue to cover the mortgage and expenses and generate a profit. "My friend's father, who was a large real estate developer, agreed to back us with some starting capital," Folkening said, "so we made a non-refundable $7,500 payment to secure a 45-day purchase option on the building."

Like any good entrepreneur, Folkening bounced back from this disappointment and started thinking about how he could put the lessons learned from his first real estate foray to good use in his next venture.  

Soon after he arrived back in Indiana disaster struck yet again. "My best friend and partner in crime -  my three-year-old black labrador - was hit by a car. I quickly become consumed by one thing and that was my dog and his survival. I know it sounds crazy but I learned how material things do not bring you happiness. I could go anywhere with my dog and be happy. It was a very special relationship and really my blessing after losing my brother," Folkening said.

"Two weeks later I had to go back to Charleston with my dog still in the emergency room and I wound up getting an offer for the business and decided to take it. It was just a really great venture and experience, something you can’t learn or do in college," Folkening said. He immediately headed back to Indiana, resumed Student Services and, best of all, watched his dog Indian slowly get better. Upon returning home Folkening also had an epiphany that would set him on the Internet course were he would finally find his life's calliing.

"It was a logical next step and a good investment risk as I merely integrated the new 21st century virtual real estate with my past physical real estate experiences. I funded my initial domain purchases with my profits from Student Services Inc. and decided at the end of the summer to sell my client base and equipment to my long time friend who had worked hard with me during the summers for the previous four years. He now makes a great living and is content with keeping it a two or three man show."

"I went into full time buying of domains in late summer of 1996. The old model of employees, equipment and overhead was making less money and more work than what I could do with a domain purchased for $100, knowing it was worth $1,000 or even $10,000. I wrote a killer business plan in late 1996 that I am still amazed at - the model  for a virtual, web-based Entrepreneurs Network.  I stuck to this model and shifted to an all virtual, domain asset buying strategy," Folkening said.

"I remember one day in late 1996 or early 1997 reading about a company that had a market valuation of like $50 million. Basically over night, the stock dropped to around a $5 million valuation simply because Microsoft said they were entering their market. I quickly decided to diversify my strategy and target the small business and deregulated Telecom and Energy markets," Folkening said.