In 1995 our founder, Jason Wolfe, started a coupon site, CouponsDirect-today called MyCoupons. At this time, it was the first internet coupon site and the only coupon site when doing a search on the newly launched Yahoo. CouponsDirect was the ONLY coupon site, imagine that! Today there are tens of thousands of coupon sites.

Here is the story of our beginnings:

At the age of 10, Jason was left without a father or mother to take care of him, and he was living with his uncle. Fortunately, he was lead by a catholic school nun to Milton Hershey School, in Hersey, PA, where he would grow up and spend the majority of his childhood. Milton Hersey School was a former orphanage, started in 1909 by the Hershey Chocolate Company founder Milton Hershey. It was established to house poor and disadvantage boys from around the country. Jason graduated from Milton Hershey School in 1987 and would continue on to put himself through college at Bloomsburg University where he would graduate in 1992. After college, he bartended and worked as a white water guide in West Virginia before suffering a tragic accident. Jason was left with severe internal and external facial damage, hearing loss, and spinal cord damage that would require his spine to be fused. Over the next two years he would undergo 6 surgeries leaving him unable to work, unable to drive and have to find a way to support himself.

In 1995, with $80,000 in medicals bills, and mostly bedridden, Jason took it upon himself to learn how to create a website by reading 2 books, "Building the Perfect Web Page" and "Perl in 21 Days". He then cobbled together the internet's first coupon site by finding merchant coupons and creating a shopping forum where users were able to swap and talk about coupons. At the time, Jason was informed that his internet idea was just fad and that he should look for real work. Determined his idea would be a success he muted the discouraging words and would work 18 hours a day, sacrifice a roof over his head and meals to see his dream come true. While living out of his car a friend of Jason's let him use a desk in his office space and gave Jason the capability to connect to the internet, thus allowing him to continue to work on and develop the coupon site.

Jason would meet a woman at this time that would impact his life. Barb Sherman, was a former newspaper editor who had retired and was living in Florida. She was a strong supporter and very active member on the new couponing community Jason was building. Her small kind gestures and encouraging words gave Jason the motivation he needed to continue to build his dream.

In 1996, Jason made his first income from the site, and then named CouponsDirect, totaling $4,950. The following year would be even more profitable bringing in $35,000 and the growth of the CouponsDirect site would began. Most of the revenue came from clicks and banner ads, and a new system Jason was inventing to track visitors from other company's websites (the future DirectTrack software). Jason was finally able to hire Barb and pay her $50 a month to help him to add coupons to the coupon site, manage the very popular Shopping Boards, and be a positive person in Jason's bleak life at the time.

As the Shopping Boards continued to grow Jason was able to hire a developer to help write code that would monitor traffic from CouponDirect (by now the site name changed to CouponDirectory and eventually would be called MyCoupons). Jason created a system called DirectTrack, a tracking technology that would follow people leaving his coupon site and buying on a third party sites. (DirectTrack eventually grew to power 16 billion ads tracked per month and was sold to Digital River in 2006).

With the company growing and expanding Jason decided it was time to start working on a logo to go with his website. While sitting in a cafe in March of 1997, he read an article in the Pittsburgh Weekly newspaper 'City Paper', about the origins of the Shamrock. St. Patrick traveled from Italy to Ireland and found the shores of Erin covered with snakes. He planted shamrocks along the shorelines which drove the snakes away. The Shamrock became a symbol of good over evil and as St. Patrick said it also represents the trinity. He returned to his desk in the corner of the office space his friend had let him borrow and opened a clip-art book. There on the page he opened to in the book was a clip art picture of the shamrock. Jason figured it was a sign, and the shamrock became the logo of the company and a personal sentiment to him. Shortly after incorporating the Shamrock Jason closed on his largest sale at that time with the then emerging Coolsavings.com. In 1998, he was able to generate $150,000 in revenue. In 1999, Jason raised $500,000 from Internet.com (which later became Jupiter Media), opened an office and expanded to 15 employees. Still his biggest supporter, Barb was made a full-time employee and was given stock in the company. In 1999, Jason's company did over $1,000,000 in sales and in 2000, he signed a deal to sell MyCoupons.com to Save.com for a deal estimated value of $23 million dollars. The deal received local and national coverage. Jason had overcome growing up in an orphanage, severe injuries and heartbreaks, but with his faith, his supporters and his drive he found great success.

Although, that is a great ending the luck and fate continued...

For three years, Barb and Jason had only ever communicated by email. Unknown to Jason, Barb had retired from her job because she was suffering from debilitating arthritis. She could hardly lift her head and was almost blind. Over the years, Barb's positive support gave Jason the faith and determination he needed, never sharing her own pains or struggles with him. After selling MyCoupons Jason and his employees boarded a plane and headed toward Florida to meet Barb for the very first time. With three minivans filled they were off to meet MyCoupons first and most ardent supporter. The very first meeting and live conversation Jason and Barb ever had would be covered by the Associated Press. The tear filled event was one of the most memorable times of Jason's life.

A few weeks after Jason had returned home he received a letter from Barb thanking him for the visit. What was most intriguing about the letter was an article Barb had included... As, Jason read the article his hands began to shake and his jaw dropped. He realized the article he was reading was the same article from the 'City Paper' he read in the cafe in 1997. That same article that influenced Jason to choose the shamrock as his logo, was written 10 years before by Barb Sherman herself! Enough to give you goose bumps.

To this day the shamrock remains part of the company logo for Wolfe.com and you will find sprinkled around all of their affiliating companies. Jason continues to wear a shamrock around his neck to remind him of his life's journey.