Below is the commencement speech I plan on delivering to the graduating class at Evergreen College on May 28th, 2010.

Thank you, Evergreen College, for asking me to speak here today. I feel honored.

Everything starts with a dream, a particle of our imagination that teases us of what the future could be like, as long as we fight for it. I’m proud of all of you in accomplishing one of your dreams today. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the same classroom experience like you did, but education has been the epicenter of my life. And sometimes, the education we receive from life experiences and some unorthodox decisions can still lead us to the right path. It starts with that inner desire of wanting to succeed. And, then you just need to believe.

People have asked me, who was your motivation to be where you are today. And, my answer has always been, my grandmother. She unfortunately, recently passed away.

Her life journey revolved around sacrifice and struggle but she harnessed it with love. She taught me that sacrifice instills discipline, struggle reminds you of the journey, but the choice to love teaches you to forgive.

Today, I’m here to share these very 3 themes with you: Sacrifice, Struggle, Love.

Sacrifice. When your working hard, no one claims luck. When you begin to achieve, people begin to stamp it as just fate. You will have bad days. There will be setbacks. You will have more than your fair share of failures. But at the end of the day, you pick yourself up and keep going. That’s the Big Secret of Life. You fall down, you get up. Every time you do this, your barometer of courage will shine. I know this to be true because it worked for me, and I’m just a guy like everybody else. And, the only handout in life we all get is the present. Don’t expect anything to happen – go out and get it. Life’s simply too short. And you have to cherish every moment.

I recently came back from India. And I visited the village of where my grandmother’s family still lives. The biggest asset they had was the love flowing in between them. But, everything else monetarily was blank. It made me realize truly the sacrifice that my grandmother made over 60 years ago. She was a single mother and her family was poor. She herself lost her mother when she was 9, and had to become the mother of the family. When she had my father, she realized she wanted to give him the chance at life. And, my father in return was the ambitious type who wanted that chance. My grandmother did small jobs such as picking chilies at the farm to collect every penny she could to provide for her son. My father who knew every sacrifice she was making to make ends meet, didn’t take anything for granted. To study for homework, he used to walk kilometers away to find a lamppost that would have enough light. This is called sacrifice. And, eventually this would be the same discipline my parents raised me with to create the person I am today. My father went on to graduate from college, got married, and after having their 4th child (me), applied for VISA for America through a lottery system. Eventually, they received it. And their definition of sacrifice took on another geography.

Struggle. It is the beginning. It reminds us that we’ve started our mission. And sometimes, we’re tested far more than others. But for every test we’re faced, we must know that if we continue fighting throughout our journey, eventually success will follow. Take chances. Without risk, there is no reward. But make sure it’s intelligent risk. Only a fool bets against Michael Jordan (until it’s time to bet against Michael Jordan). Those who dream and count on luck, get surrounded by jealousy. Those who dream and let struggle drive them, get surrounded by ambition.

When I was a kid, I remember coming home every day from school to my grandmother with my self-esteem in shreds. For being different, I was teased relentlessly as a child. I had a choice to make. I could either become an introvert and let this negative noise consume me, or I could go accept the fact that I’m different and realize “okay, what now.” That exact feeling gave me strength to focus on my passion and eventually figure out that one thing I’m good at. Business. Obviously, when I entered the world of business at age 16, it wasn’t easy. My lack of education, money, and background were all against me. But, I didn’t let that come in the way of writing my own destiny. Now, that I look back at that journey, every struggle I faced matured me to accept every battle that came in the way.

Love. If you have a choice between hatred or forgiveness. Pick forgiveness. It will mature you in more ways than one and let you look at life differently. We have to own our mistakes. At the end of the day, every decision we make, even if it was inspired by misguided advice, was our decision. Nobody wins when you start looking for someone to blame. Let it go. Keep moving. Forward movement is everything.

Six months after I started my first company, I received a threat from a rogue employee that if I didn’t give them 1/3 of my Company he would shut me down. Being 16, not knowing what a threat or extortion was, I tried to call his bluff. And moments later, I was out of business. I felt naked. I felt everything I worked for when I dropped out of high school was about to be taken away from me, simply because of someone else’s greed. But, I took a deep breath and realized it was time for me to take back control. I was out of business for a full week. Imagine that, no website, no email, nothing. After the most painful week as a 16-year old, I was able to get back control but this time with a tainted name. I had to go up against upset customers that lost money because of the fact I was down. I accepted what happened and tried to pick up the pieces. Remembering the words of my grandmother, I didn’t resort to hate, I didn’t resort to vengeance. I forgave. And, used it as a lesson, as a stepping-stone for my maturity as an entrepreneur. 15 months from that incident, I sold my first Company for $40 million. I guess, karma has its own way of working out. It may not happen right away, but it does find its way into life’s most complicated times.

Finally, I want you to look around to the loved ones that came to support you today. Look in their eyes, and you will see they are proud of a great step you accomplished today. Give them a hug. And, if your lucky – and your parents are here today. Hug them like you’ve never hugged them before. Thank them for allowing you to grow up.

If you’re fortunate enough, you’ll be the ones raising them, as they grow old.

Thank you.

As many of you know, I originally created gWallet to be a platform for offers in the coupon space. We tried that and changed our direction. I’m probably the most critical person and I’ve set the bar pretty high for myself. I sold my first Company for $40 million at 18, my second one for $300 million at 25, and at 27 started gWallet. Even though the coupon space was interesting, it wasn’t quite big enough of a challenge for me. I also have an important philosophy when it comes to business that I even mentioned in my book. Here’s an excerpt from it:

“Most people think they need to know exactly what they want to do when they start a business, but they’re wrong. If you go into something with a very specific plan, you might be so focused on your goal that you won’t see the promising opportunities that present themselves as you make your way along. Take the blinders off. Look around. Don’t be afraid to go off on all sorts of unusual directions, since that’s where you might just find the most unusual—and promising—opportunities.”

That’s why we changed our focus and became a platform in the virtual currency space. And have had tremendous success thus far. It’s a new, multi-billion dollar market with a bigger challenge and something I feel we can dominate.

And, even though we raised $12.5 million – that just means the journey officially begins for us. The formula to success is going to be on hiring the best rockstars, innovating, and most importantly executing. The capital will give us great resources to open new offices throughout the world, launch our several product initiatives, and even potentially acquire companies.

I’m very excited about this milestone. I always felt – the third time can be a charm. And, I am hoping I can create #3, to be even bigger then my prior 2. With God by my side, I think I may have a great shot at this.

Steve Jobs once said these four words in a speech – and they’ve resonated with me since. “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.” To me this means – to never forget where you came from, and most importantly, never forget where you want to go.”

Here’s to another incredible journey…

As you know, gWallet recently entered the virtual currency space, and I’m extremely bullish about our entry in this industry. Just yesterday, one of our users bought $1200 worth of digital goods. Five years ago, no one would have ever predicted that someone would buy $5 worth of in-game currency.

That said, last week was a trying one for the virtual goods industry. First, Anu Shukla of Offerpal and Michael Arrington in this video mixed it up at the Virtual Goods Summit, and then Arrington published several articles exposing the sleazier side of the offer industry.

To us, this disruption is exciting. We entered this space because of its phenomenal growth potential, but we were also attracted by the relative lack of sophistication of our competition. Like all businesses, the offer marketplace revolves around supply and demand. (Supply is applications and virtual worlds that support virtual currency, and demand equals advertisers.) We excel at working with advertisers; we proved this at both ClickAgents (acquired by ValueClick in 2000 for $40 milion) and BlueLithium (acquired by Yahoo in 2007 for $300 million).

When we took a look at the offer business, however, we immediately realized that the demand side of this business is broken. No one is working directly with advertisers to help them understand and appreciate the value of this marketplace. Michael Arrington did a great thing by exposing the weaknesses associated with this model, and his words are starting to wake people up.

Last week I was on a panel at the 80/20 conference with some of my competitors, and I outlined what I think is broken in the industry and how we plan on fixing it.

Here are some of the points I made:

· In order for a marketplace to work, supply and demand need to operate in synch. In the offer business, all of my competitors are sourcing advertisers through affiliate networks. Most of these affiliate networks don’t offer any transparency to the advertiser: the advertiser often doesn’t know where its inventory is appearing, since it’s blended with traffic from other sites. It’s like adding water to soup; it may be palatable, but it’s not as nutritious as the real thing. To be successful, a company like ours needs to work directly with advertisers and agencies and implement tracking that can deliver the best ROI possible. You can’t do this by just rotating affiliate links.

· Over the last ten years, we’ve developed long-lasting relationships with major brands like GM and Anheuser-Busch. That’s why we’ve walked away from many of the shady offers our competitors are working. Over the long-term, you can’t make money by deceiving both consumers and advertisers. It’s just bad karma, and sooner or later, it will bite you in the ass. We’re introducing large advertisers and agencies into this vertical, and to our surprise, none of our competitors have even approached them. It just reminds me how unsophisticated this industry is and why we’re so excited to fix it.

· This system is not good for publishers, either. Sooner or later, when our competitors shun shady offers, there will be a huge price correction in this space. Some developers who are making upwards of $10,000 a day in revenue are in for a rude shock. The funny thing is, many of them already know this. The big players realize that they can’t go public with this kind of suspect revenue, and they are taking aggressive steps to remedy the problem. We applaud companies like Zynga that are saying no to offer scams. It will take longer for smaller players to realize that the high eCPMS to which they have become addicted are ultimately bad for business, but they will realize it soon enough.

· Bringing large brands and agencies into this space requires an extensive amount of education. You have to teach these players how to create value; you have to create specific social media offers that are different from traditional advertising or affiliate network buys. For example, for subscription-based advertisers, we’re designing offers right now in which advertisers pay $X for a new user, and if that user subscribes to their product for Month 2 or Month 3, they receive a residual bounty.

· Technology is not just talk; it is the underlying asset that enables both supply and demand to work in synch. Right now, our competitors are almost openly dismissive about the importance of technology. At the 80/20 conference, for example, the largest competitor in our space declared that “they don’t optimize; they just outperform.” Translation: “Meaning, we have no technology but we’re doing something cosmetic.” If you’re a company like Zynga, is this really the answer you want to hear? This kind of approach provides no scale, long-term sustainability, or value; it’s just a bunch of hand-waving. We’ve learned how important technology is based on my prior two ventures in the ad network space, where technology was the cornerstone to our success.

· We love developers in this space. It’s amazing how social gaming has changed the fundamental business model of a gaming company. And it’s only going to get bigger when the right monetization engine is in place for this marketplace.

I’m a strong believer that the right player with the right platform can create substantial value inside this ecosystem. I remember when I started ClickAgents. We were probably the 30^th ad network to enter the market, but just two years later, we had carved out a leadership role in the marketplace. When I started BlueLithium, we may have been the 300^th ad network, but three and a half years later, we proved that through data and analytics, a startup can create tremendous value.

In conclusion I want to apologize to Michael Arrington for Anu Shukla’s response to his question during her panel discussion at Virtual Goods Summit. When someone challenges you about a legitimate industry issue, you shouldn’t need to resort to verbal abuse or profanity; you should address them in a way that proves your model through logic and reason. Anytime someone uses vulgarity, it shows that you’d rather use noise to make your statement speak louder than your reason. So for that, I’m sorry, Michael, but thank you for waking this industry up.

As you all know, gWallet is now live and in beta. We’re gearing up for our first ever summer internship program. If your a driven person looking to be an innovative start up environment then we want to hear from you! Based on the various job tasks – most will be located in our San Francisco headquarters. However, we do have a few openings that can be remotely based. Internship opportunities can lead to full-time employment.

For more information – please send your resume to: hr@gWallet.com

Look forward in hearing from you.

Gurbaksh Chahal

India is one of the most populous countries in the world but also has the biggest disparity between the rich and poor. Any foundation that tries to enrich the lives of individuals definitely catches my attention – and Nanubhai is definitely trying to fix a void that exists in India’s society today.

To learn more about Nanubhai – you can visit: http://nanubhai.org/

To see pictures from the event you can also vist: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=226988&id=532615110&l=8b099

For those of you that missed the event, below is the transcript of my speech.

Good Evening everyone.

First of all – I’d like to thank Nanubhai for inviting me here today.

I’m 26 and I feel truly blessed that god’s given me a chance to reach my dreams at an early age. Twenty-Three years ago when my parents first came to this country – my father had a strict agenda in mind for me.  No surprise here, but he wanted either me to be a doctor or engineer. My father had arrived with $25 in his pocket through a lottery-based visa, but his heart was full of dreams. “Education is the key that opens all the locks to all the doors in the world. My four children will become doctors and engineers. Maybe even both!” he would say. That didn’t necessarily happen – but with God’s blessing by our side – we all became very successful.

As a child, I never realized what the importance of education was or why it meant so much for them until several years later. And, that came down to resilience and sacrifice.

If I were to point out a true hero in my life, a person that defied all odds to make everything happen for us – that would be my grandmother. In rural India, she was a single mother that raised my father. Especially in those tough times, education for women wasn’t allowed or accepted as part of society. So, she picked chilies, did various farming jobs to make ends meet – for only one dream of hers. And, that was to give her son, my father, the proper education he needed to thrive and realize his dreams.

While my grandmother wasn’t given a chance to receive proper education – this setback further instilled discipline and courage for my father to succeed. My father went on to get an English degree and with that was able to have a successful career in America.

This is what attracted me to Nanubhai. I feel the progress they’ve made even in the particular region of Gujarat to promote education across both genders is amazing. It’s providing hope, direction, and most of all a journey of a lifetime for these adolescence.

I know during these tough economic times – it’s tough to be involved in organizations – so I’d like to thank all of you for supporting this organization today but I also commend the organizers and volunteers for continuing their vision in making this happen. Not only am I happy of their efforts and support this cause. But, if my grandmother and parents were here at this event today, they would be too.

Thank you very much. And I wish everyone a great 2009!

gWallet is now live and we are adding thousands of new products to the site daily. Never pay full price again! Come check out many of the online coupons, freebies, and bargains we’ve added from thousands of merchants like Macys, Amazon, BestBuy, Dell, Wine.com, FTD, Proflowers, Target, Walmart, and many more. You can register at www.gWallet.com today.

Feel free to also post any of your ideas/recommendations on what else you may want to see on the site. We’ll be adding new features, deals, and products every week!

Thanks and happy shopping!

G

But, here’s the catch – I didn’t know anything about how to write a book or how to go about even getting it published. One of the things I realized early on – if you don’t know how to do a particular thing – go out and surround yourself on the people that do. So, I did exactly that.

Last year I signed up the William Morris Agency – one of the biggest talent agencies in the entertainment & media space. Outside of the television, film, and production talent they represent – they also have a very big literary department. My agent introduced me to one of their literary agents and I flew down to New York to discuss my intentions for “The Dream.”

As I walked into his office, I was asked a very straightforward question. Why do you want to write a book and your only “25” – do you even have enough to talk about in a book? My answer was – “the last 10 years of my life have been a complete roller coaster ride and truly unique – and that exact journey came with situations that tried to stop me from reaching my dreams; I want to share my story to let people know to never give up and the biggest shortcut to each success all starts with that first dream.” On the second question – whether there was enough to write a book  – after I walked him through some of the stories – he later realized I had too much to talk about in just one book. Nevertheless, he was convinced that there was a story to be told and walked me through the process.

The second part was to find a co-writer. So, I was introduced to five different ghostwriters that all at one point in their life had written books that made the New York Times best-seller list. I connected the most with Pablo Fenjves and selected him to work with me on the project. Next, we needed to write a book proposal which almost is like a “book summary.” After six weeks – we finished the proposal. Now, my agent went to work and sent the book proposal to all of the major publishing houses. Several were interested in meeting me to discuss the project and eventually I connected the most with Airie Stuart of Palgrave Macmillan. I remembered having an honest discussion of why I wanted to tell my story. And, frankly I told her – that even if only 5 people end up buying this book – I am confident that this will get them closer to finding their magic. I remember jokingly later telling her – I am hoping we sell more than 5 copies.

A few weeks after that meeting, we ended up selling global rights to Palgrave Macmillan (part of St. Martin Press) for the Dream. Pablo and I went to work – and after 8 hard months, finally completed the manuscript for the Dream. That was a huge experience in of itself, and at times a very humbling one.

To be upfront – I’m not doing this for profit (after all the cuts, my share would be $2 per book). My passion is clear. I think we’re all in this world to do great things. There are obstacles and insecurities that sometimes stop us. I am hoping after you hear my story – you believe that we all can defy the odds.

The Dream releases globally on October 23rd, 2008.
You can buy your copy on Amazon.com’s pre-release by clicking here:

This was when I first got introduced entrepreneurism. I started ClickAgents, one of the first ad networks focused on performance based advertising. I actually didn’t raise any venture capital – since truth be told I was nervous to take any. Looking back at all the different meetings I had, one conversation came to mind. This was from a prominent investor, who basically suggested that my strategy was “flawed.” ClickAgents was doing the exact opposite of most companies he saw. We were actually profitable. Which meant we’d be valued at an EBITDA (just like a traditional company) rather than a hyped up multiple on the perception that we’d make money someday. Needless to say, ClickAgents didn’t become a billion-dollar IPO, but instead got acquired by ValueClick for $40 million. Valued of course on real metrics (profitability).

As many of you know, I then started BlueLithium and last October 2007 – sold it to Yahoo for $300 million. We were growing rapidly and were also profitable. So, we were again valued on real company metrics (profitability).

What makes me nervous – we claim the economy is in a recession, but the Web 2.0 private companies aren’t. Some of the astronomical valuations – I’ve seen from various companies, almost makes me remember 1999 all over again. The big difference here is – back when the first bubble hit – the valuations were still low in the private markets, but the public markets exaggerated them. Which meant the investors, employees, and founders could eventually cash out when the company went public. In today’s euphoria, these Web 2.0 companies are getting skyrocket valuations during their investment round. When you look at the brutality of the public markets this year and what Sarbox compliance has required to take companies public – it makes you wonder what exit strategy do these companies have if they can’t go public. I guess, that’s simple – there hoping to get bought for an even higher price.

However, I’m not sure there are buyers at these levels. At least, not enough of them.

Here are some recent valuations:

1. Slide – a Web 2.0 widget company. I’ve met the CEO myself a few times, who I respect and think very highly of, but this is a company that recently raised $50 million on a $500 million valuation. It’s supposed to do $10 to $12 million in revenue this year. Not profitable.

2. RockYou – a Web 2.0 widget company like Slide but the “mini-me” version. Is rumored to close a round of financing in the $400 million range. The revenue is supposed to be smaller than Slide. And of course, not profitable.

3. Twitter – the Web 2.0 site that lets you tell your friends what you’re doing. No revenue, no profitability, and no business model. But, about to close a round at a $100 million valuation.

4. Facebook – a great product that has close to 100 million users worldwide. But, a $15 billion valuation on $150 million in revenue. A ridiculous multiple of 100X revenue.

Some of these companies have great products, features and great teams – but also great valuations on the hope that same day they’ll turn black. This is happening – when the memory of the dot-com bust is fresh with us from 8 years ago. If this is a bubble – which I believe it to be – I hope it doesn’t cause the economy to enter into a bigger recession.

I also hope this doesn’t wipe off valuable equity created from a lot of entrepreneurs, investors, and employees who end up waiting too long to make an exit.

People should always remember, in the game of musical chairs, the music always stops. And even if the music stops it’s okay – so long as you have a business that is rapidly growing with real metrics…

Many people feel that they have a set financial position they want to attain and the only way to achieve that is by being the head guy in charge. That’s a great strategy – but sometimes if the right knowledge of being a leader hasn’t been instilled yet – it can lead to failure. I still encourage people to strive to achieve this but bear in mind Plan B can achieve a great financial and career outcome as well.

So, what is Plan B? It’s simple. Figure out what your strengths are and stick to them. You don’t have to the best at it either, just better than the next guy.

Let’s take a look at the various successful companies built out over recent years. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, YouTube, and even my two successful startups (ClickAgents & BlueLithium). I can proudly say that I’ve helped create many 6, 7 and even 8 digit-aires. But, to even a greater extent, look at companies like Google/Yahoo/Microsoft. In a recent article I read about Google, about 1000 employees now have a net worth of $5MM or MORE. And that organization excels at maintaining great employees – that strive to come to work every day and make the Company a great success. As Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, you’re only as good as your Army’s strength. And great Companies know how to incentivize their armies to share in that evolving pie.

Financial rewards follow if you make the right decisions on where to exploit your passion and energy. Remember – just keep your ego at bay. Life’s all about execution, making the right choices, and focus…

All my life – I’ve faced this dilemma and I’ve realized the formula that works for me. I choose to run. Whatever the situation maybe, but when that inexplicable feeling inside me tells me to go for it – I choose to listen to it. What I’ve realized is that when you decide to go 110% on your chosen path, the energy and time you normally would put at the fear of failure – goes away. You have no option to fail and you choose to put all your energies on the positives. Failure never becomes an option and it shouldn’t be. Life doesn’t always work that way – but the chances are – if you build your DNA to grow a wall that can eliminate any negative noise – your chance of success just grows astronomically. Always stand up for what you believe or want. That inner voice is your friend.

Now – I’m not saying I jump into everything “gung-ho” – there are limitations here. Look at the state of our economy it’s the result of the build-up from the credit crisis we face today. That’s a mistake that’s costing many Americans and the overall economy dearly. The difference here is – separating tangible risk with material risk. If we choose to invest materially into something that we can’t have control of – like money – the risk of failure increases. However, if we choose to invest our time, focus, energy, discipline, values on all the tangible goals we have in life – you begin to build that inner-confidence that defines your DNA to succeed.

So, as even Nike says, JUST DO IT.