314 580 3455 | Randy Dinwiddie The Story of the DealMaker Part 3 The DealMaker Internet Politics | Dependable Brokers
DRAFT | Unpublished | For Randy's manual review only
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SECTION 3 - THE DEALMAKER, THE INTERNET, AND POLITICS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: BECOMING THE DEALMAKER
The years that followed were filled with businesses, ideas, changes in direction, successes, failures, and reinventions. Collections and repossessions became only one piece of a much larger entrepreneurial life.
Publishing. Advertising. Merchant services. Telecommunications. Insurance. Online commerce. Business directories. Search-engine optimization. Automotive ventures. Employment services. And ideas that, on the surface, sometimes appeared completely unrelated.
But underneath them was the same approach: Find a need. Find a way. Make the deal.
Eventually the nickname "The DealMaker" made sense. For me, making a deal was never simply about selling something. It was about looking at a situation other people considered impossible and asking: Is there another way?
That mentality did not begin in business. It began in childhood. When life put a wall in front of me, I learned to search for a door. And when there wasn't a door, I learned to look for a way around the wall.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: 2002 - TAKING BUSINESS TO THE INTERNET
By 2002, I was already looking at the internet as another road to opportunity. That year, AllBounty.com went online.
It would remain online for approximately twenty years, until I eventually let the site go around 2022.
AllBounty was important because it demonstrated something that would become increasingly central to my business life: I did not believe a business had to remain limited by geography. The internet could connect a small operation in Missouri with people practically anywhere.
Today, putting a business online sounds ordinary. In 2002, especially for a small-business operator accustomed to face-to-face selling, telephones, newspapers, magazines, and direct marketing, it represented a significant change. I saw opportunity in it.
AllBounty.com became one of my earliest long-running internet ventures. For roughly two decades, it remained part of my online history. And it was only the beginning.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BUILDING BUSINESSES THAT COULD SURVIVE
My experience at Lake of the Ozarks had taught me that relying on one industry or one seasonal income source could be dangerous. So I kept building.
Over the years, those efforts included operations and names associated with Deal Maker, Jett Comm, AmeriShop, Dependable Brokers, and other ventures.
The industries changed. The underlying philosophy rarely did.
If a business or consumer had a legitimate problem and I could create a legitimate service to solve it, I saw an opportunity. Some ideas worked exceptionally well. Some did not. Some lasted for years. Others taught me what not to do.
But I kept experimenting. That willingness to reinvent became one of the most important characteristics of my business career.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE INTERNET CHANGES EVERYTHING
AllBounty.com helped establish a pattern that would grow considerably over the following years.
The internet removed many of the geographical limitations I had experienced as a young businessman at the Lake of the Ozarks. A website did not close when tourist season ended. Someone hundreds or thousands of miles away could find your business.
Marketing could become national. Publishing could become digital. Advertising could reach audiences that once would have required expensive newspapers, magazines, television, or direct mail.
Over time, I became involved with a growing network of online ventures. AmeriShop evolved around advertising, directories, promotion, and business services. Telecommunications ventures used the internet to reach customers beyond Missouri. Dependable Brokers developed a significant online presence for commercial insurance.
Later projects moved into SEO, employment, vehicles, specialized directories, and other areas.
The technology changed dramatically. But the principle remained exactly what it had been when I installed that first telephone for Collections 1: Give me a way to reach people, and I'll try to build something with it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: GOVERNMENT SHOULD WORK FOR THE PEOPLE
Eventually my frustration with government became too great for me to simply complain about it.
I believed the system was broken. Government was supposed to work for the people.
Instead, from where I stood, it increasingly seemed that:
The people were working for the government.
So I ran for office.
My first significant run for Missouri state representative was as an Independent candidate. I challenged an established political system without the organization and resources of a major political party behind me.
My recollection is that I received about 16 percent of the vote.
I didn't win.
But winning was not the only point. I was willing to put my own name on the ballot instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining.
That came from the same instinct I had always carried into business. If there is a problem, somebody needs to do something.
And sometimes my answer has been: Fine. I'll try.
CHAPTER TWENTY: RUNNING AGAIN
I eventually ran for state representative again.
By the time of the later campaign, the political landscape felt very different. The district had changed.
From my perspective, many of the voters and communities where I had established relationships were no longer part of the political base I remembered.
Much of the territory had shifted toward Cole County, where I did not know nearly as many people.
It felt as though I had been forced to start over.
In 2018, I entered the Republican race for Missouri House. It was a crowded field.
But my reason for running had not fundamentally changed. I believed government needed to remember something basic:
The people employ the government.
I believed communities needed jobs, economic development, practical problem-solving, negotiation, and people willing to actually get things done.
I did not win.
But political victory or defeat was never going to be the final measurement of my life.
Like nearly everything else, the experience became another lesson.
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