Isaac Jacobson: Success in any Economy

Isaac Jacobson of eTagz is a salesman and CEO rolled into one. In fact, Jacobson has built his reputation and career on his ability to sell. He is currently poised to begin licensing his company’s product, eTagz. But, unlike many good salesmen, he’s taking inbound calls. As Jacobson sees it, “It’s not what you know or who you know. It’s who knows you that makes you successful.” And a lot of people know Jacobson.

Jacobson has certainly worked to become the savvy entrepreneur he is. Early in his life, his parents instilled in him the vital knowledge that he was valuable despite the fact his surroundings told him he was “a born underdog.” Jacobson was encouraged to rise above whatever difficulties came his way.

He also learned the crucial importance of being able to sell. “If you learn how to sell, you will never go hungry. Never. Ever. With any economy. If you can find the thread that sells, then any business can be revived, any business can grow larger, any business can do well,” he says.

And Jacobson proved that point. He worked with TheDial.com, Digonex Technologies, Humanizing Technologies, DiscGo, SwapMo.com and then Sagebit to “fix the broken bodies that the dot-com bubble created.” He also learned that “he who controls distribution controls everything.”

Wanting to control the means of distribution himself, Jacobson jumped at the chance to purchase eTagz and its patents in 2002. He says, “eTagz was the culmination of all my experience: the entertainment industry, the CD industry, which I had an interest in, the pricing of entertainment, distribution of entertainment, how people reacted to and consumed entertainment. So it was, like, perfect—everything in one.”

One of Jacobson’s many future goals for eTagz is to bring the CD business back to the United States from China. “The paid-for CD is going down, and all the free CDs are made in China. So somebody’s losing all that business. What I’m doing is I’m taking that free CD market, that fire hydrant, and I’m bringing it back to the U.S. and saying, ‘OK, who wants it?’ I have 100 million CDs that I’m going to have the rights to manufacture next year. Who’s going to take it?”

If his experience and enthusiasm are any indication, eTagz should be an easy sell for a born entrepreneur like Jacobson.