In the mid 1990s, Henry Helgeson worked as an independent contractor for United Processing Corp. in Somers, New York. “I was going door to door, selling dialup terminals and printers for about $1,200—or about $39 a month as a lease,” he
remembers.

Helgeson knew the products were overpriced, but he also understood that he and his fellow contractors were part of the reason why. “Salespeople like me drove up the cost of acquisition,” he says. “I knew there had to be a better way to do it—to get these products out to people, but at a more affordable price.”

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