F O R   I M M E D I A T E   R E L E A S E Contact: Paul Smedberg, paul@paulsmedberg.com for a real "live" telephone interview, to answer questions, or to provide valuable philosophical insights This release is about SalaryDoubler Keywords: career, job, salary, internet, web, humor, surrealism, dada, math, money, site, useless, odd SalaryDoubler Fulfills Promise It's something we all want to do - double our salaries. For hundreds of years, since the first salary (literally a bag of salt) in ancient Roman time, people have been trying to double their salaries. Now internet designer Paul Smedberg has found a way to fulfill that dream for anyone who visits his site at www.salarydoubler.com. "I was looking for a way to help people that wouldn't take a lot of time or energy." says the bespectacled Smedberg from his basement office in ruggedly beautiful Bloomington, Indiana. "In the end, I decided not to bother, and created SalaryDoubler.com instead." The idea of creating a site to double people's salaries came to Smedberg in a sudden epiphany. Though he didn't exactly know, at that time, what "epiphany" meant. "I was sitting quietly on the porch, trying to remember the name of the Republican candidate for Vice President in 1964 when suddenly it was like I was hit in the head. One of the neighborhood kids had hit me in the head with a foul baseball." This seminal event led Smedberg to look up the words "epiphany" and "seminal" in the dictionary where he stumbled upon the word "salary". "I'm not very good at spelling nor proficient with alphabetization," said Smedberg, "so I was looking through the "Sa" section instead of the "Se" section when I saw the word "salary" and realized that this was the be-all and end-all measure of one's station in the working world, and that everyone, from the most powerful CEO to the meanest "fry girl" at a fast food restaurant wanted to double their salary. Smedberg knew that with his extensive mathematics background that included "some college" he could serve all these people. Smedberg didn't see the many problems that would have thwarted a less courageous or smarter entrepreneur. He wrote down the idea on the back of a napkin which ended up in the washing machine where it was completely destroyed. "It took me another 20 months to remember what was on that napkin," recalls Smedberg somewhat ruefully. "If I'd have launched 20 months earlier, I'd probably have become a dot-com billionaire." "But, odds are I would have lost it all by now anyway," he added, his usual upbeat demeanor returning. More Q&A: Q: What kind of person uses SalaryDoubler? Smedberg: One surprising thing that our marketing research has pointed out is that SalaryDoubler visitors tend to have a fairly high level of education. We expected to attract a significant number of dummies, but that turned out not to be the case. And, you'd think that the poor would be most interested in doubling their salaries because the working poor often have trouble meeting rent, or putting food on the table, but SalaryDoubler users range across a full spectrum of incomes. Rich people want to double their salaries as much as poor people do. Q: What kind of response have you received from the accounting community? Smedberg: Well I did tell an accountant friend of mind that we were building a site to double people's salaries, and, cutting straight to the heart of the matter she asked if it was for real. Q: What else can you double with SalaryDoubler.com? Smedberg: We don't recommend that people use SalaryDoubler for any other purpose. It's like using a can of spray paint to power a small rocket. Sure, it might work, but it could also be very dangerous. Q: How important is it to have a site that loads quickly? Smedberg: That's very important. We were considering providing a lot of useful professional career advice and an extensive and easy to use job listing service, but it just would have slowed down the site too much. Q: Have you ever considered a "salary tripler"? Smedberg: I just don't think that the technology is there to do tripling at this time. And with the vagaries of the market these days, I'm not sure that the service is needed. Q: Are there any other products or services on the horizon? Smedberg: Most of the team that did SalaryDoubler have begun work on a business oriented RevenueDoubler. We aren't making any announcements at this time because we're still in negotiation with some strategic partners. But the core technology is the same, it's just that there are some data redundancy and security issues that still need to be resolved. Q: I assume you've doubled your own salary. How did that feel? Smedberg: Well, as you can imagine, I was one of the first people to try the system. And to answer your question about how it felt, well, frankly I was exhilarated. To have produced something this far reaching and sophisticated, and to then turn the gun on myself, so to speak, was one of the high points of my life. Q: What's next for Paul Smedberg? Smedberg: Maybe get some coffee. Actually, I'll probably drink some water and then there's a good chance I might watch some TV.       Note: Miller was the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in 1964.