Fathi SarraffiHow a 16-Year-Old Cracked the Secret to $1,000/Month in 1940s Cash
Most successful entrepreneurs don’t start until their 30s or 40s.
But Melvin Powers was already building his empire at 16, and showed signs of genius that would reshape the copywriting world itself.
Before we dive in, for our new readers: we’re one of the fastest growing newsletters in the world right now, adding almost 4,000 subscribers monthly.
So for our new readers: I’ve been doing a short series on lesser known but successful pre-internet copywriters and admen.
Picture Boston, Massachusetts in the 1940s. Just after the Depression, right at the wake of WWII.
While other teenagers are playing sports or chasing girls, 16-year-old Powers, not to be mistaken with Melvin Lane Powers has developed an unusual obsession: classified ads.
He doesn’t just read them, he studies them with the intensity of a chess master analyzing grandmaster games.
“I used to play a lot of chess when I was sixteen years old,”
Powers recalled. “I saw a classified ad in Popular Science that said, ‘Do you want to win at chess?’ Of course, all chess players want to win at chess and I sent away for it.”
When that chess book arrived, something clicked in young Powers’s mind that would change everything.
With the book came some circulars(pamphlets) about other books, including Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill(a book he later wrote the foreword for). He sent away for that book and others, and when he got them, he started reading.
Most kids would read the book and move on.
Powers saw something else entirely: “I said, ‘Gee, this would be a nice hobby for me. I think I’d like to do the same thing.’”
So at just 16 years old, while still living at home and attending high school, Powers launched his classified ad empire.
He wrote to the publishers of books about chess, poker, bridge bidding, calligraphy, joke telling, and horse racing, all the how-to books. The results were extraordinary for a teenager still doing homework.
“I was making $1,000 a month after I got going,” Powers said.
That’s nearly $20,000 monthly in today’s money.
“I had the family helping me, doing it all from my kitchen table, and one of the rooms in my house turned into my store room.”
Imagine that: a high school student pulling in serious money while his classmates worked part-time jobs for pocket change.
“A lot of it was cash,” he remembered. “It was like hitting the lottery every day.”
His parents weren’t just supportive, they were amazed.
“Yes, they thought it was great,” Powers said. “It was just a fun thing to do, shaking out money out of the envelopes.”
While his high school friends focused on the next weekend, Powers was building systems with the precision of a scientist. “I was keeping very careful records,” he explained.
“We recorded how many inquiries we got and the amount of orders. Everything was keyed. I would know exactly if the ad was making it.”
The teenage prodigy even had the wisdom to temporarily pause his empire for education.
Before moving to California, he stopped the business because it was interfering with his schoolwork. But when he came to Los Angeles, he had the formula and knew exactly how to restart.
“There was no question in my mind,” Powers said. “I just had to pick up where I left off.”
He started running classified ads in numerous consumer magazines on subjects like poker, bridge, bowling, golf, horse racing, health, chess, and self-help. The tag line read “send for free information,” and the sales went fine from day one.
What made Powers a true business prodigy wasn’t just his early success, it was his supernatural ability to spot winning opportunities that seasoned business veterans missed completely.
After his massive success with classified ads, he ran into Dr. Maxwell Maltz, an accomplished cosmetic surgeon and author. Maltz’s third book, “Psycho-Cybernetics,” wasn’t doing well.
“Here’s a book that no one knew was a hit,” Powers explained. “The book came out in hard cover and it wasn’t selling. The company that originally published it was going to drop the book.”
Powers picked up the book because of its unusual title. “I said to myself, ‘This book is a gem. Why isn’t there a soft cover edition?’” When he inquired about the book’s performance, the publisher said it wasn’t selling.
Powers called the publisher immediately. “I said, ‘I’m Melvin Powers. I’d like to publish your book Psycho-Cybernetics.’ They said, ‘Great.’ I got it for next to nothing.”
But here’s the genius part: “I knew it was a hit before I even published the book.” The result? Over five million copies sold over the years.
Powers understood something profound about human psychology that most marketers never grasp. “People want to know what the secret is,” he said. His book titles reflected this insight: “Three Magic Words” and “The Secret of Secrets” both sold exceptionally well.
His ad headlines were psychological masterpieces. “Have you ever bowled a strike, and said I got it?” was a big hit. Another winner: “Have you ever taken a practice golf swing at a dandelion?” Every golfer could relate to having a perfect swing until they got on the course.
While other publishers paid full advertising rates, Powers evolved into a master negotiator. He wrote to magazine advertising managers proposing PI deals(promotional deals around PI day) for his books. For every order he got, he would send the magazine fifty percent. If he got a $10 order, he’d send the magazine $5.
He built partnerships built on profit.
As he grew he refined other aspects of the business: testing the ads first, then offering them to magazines once proven.
“I would run an ad that was paying off,” he explained.
“When you have an ad that’s working such as ‘Would you like to have a photographic memory?’ When I knew that it was working then I’d send it to the magazines, and it would work for them as well.”
Perhaps Powers’s greatest insight was that books weren’t the real business, they were the front end. “Don’t forget, one book was selling other books,” he said. The back-end of his bowling book was a record and cassette that sold for ten dollars. His book “The Secret Perfect Putting” originally sold for two dollars, but the back-end record and cassette sold for ten dollars.
He was a master funnel builder before it was widely known. Powers upsold on nearly every direct mail offer he put out, creating a flywheel system that sold itself.
But What drove this teenage prodigy wasn’t just money, it was something deeper. “I’m happy with the books I’ve published because every week people tell me how their lives have been changed by them,” he said. “It’s a nice feeling.”
Years later, Powers would reflect: “I’m high every day. I come to the office and I am high. Work isn’t work.” His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: “Don’t give up. Do your homework. It’s always a creative process that finally works.”
Powers easily made over $10 million in his lifetime. Publicly, he spent his wealth building a large mail-order publishing business, investing in printing, advertising, production of books and audio courses, and establishing the Wilshire Book Company headquarters in Chatsworth, California.
Privately, we don't really know how he enjoyed the fruits of his labor.
Powers leaves us with this wisdom: “You have to look at those people that have made it already and do exactly what they are doing. Look at their ads, read their literature, get on their mailing list, buy their books and courses. Follow the leaders.”
Till next Saturday and with much Love,
Fathi
