Game Changer Profile

Mark Manney, CEO and Founder at Infobeing Read insights

I’m Mark Manney, founder of Infobeing.com. Infobeing is creating the People Economy to set you free from your job. I’m also the guy who, 10 years ago, escaped corporate office life in Seattle to travel the world, start a virtual sales agency, and make music with the band Abscondo.

After earning my BS and MBA from the University of Colorado, I spent 6 mostly miserable years in Seattle selling enterprise software for ATG.  Nothing against the beautiful city of Seattle, but the endless days wasted in my in a gray cube led to lost years of my life that I will never get back.  I’m proud of my academic accomplishments and my years of corporate sales experience but, by the age of 29, I had come to the conclusion that this was not the path for me.  I made the difficult decision that something drastic needed to change.  I wanted to travel, to write, to make music, to earn a living on my own terms, and I wanted to live more freely.

My Slovak wife and I decided to spend some time in Europe. After years of saving, we planned to leave our jobs in order to spend a year traveling Europe.  I found that it was possible to take my job with me because, with a VoIP phone line, I could work from anywhere in the world.  During the next 4 years at ATG, I sold eCommerce software into every region of the world.  My expertise is really on the lead-gen side, so when I left ATG I started a sales agency to help software companies and consumer brands reach new global markets. With a small team in India and Slovakia, the sales agency has allowed me to break free from a job and earn a living with only a few hours of work per day.  We currently serve 10 customers in various parts of the world.

With my free time, I have been able to pursue other passions. In these past 10 years abroad, I have travelled extensively and spent months in places like Cannes, Paris, and Barcelona.  I’m blogging and I self-published a book called “Love It or Leave It: The End of Government as the Problem”.  I also write songs. I enjoy writing while on trains, sitting on park benches, or better yet on the beaches of Greece, Croatia, Italy, France, and Turkey.  My songwriting led me to start recording music.  3 years ago I formed a rock band called Abscondo.  Abscondo will be releasing an album in 2015.  I’ve appeared on a Slovak reality show, a morning TV show, performed multiple times on the radio, and we play regularly across central Europe.

Perhaps more importantly, I have made friends and formed relationships with so many people who I would never have met or spent any time with had I continue to pass my days in the corporate office.  These relationships with people of all ages, with different nationalities and socio-economic backgrounds, have been an influence on the design of my Infobeing.

As I turned 40 this year, I have come to the conclusion that the primary purpose of my life is to launch Infobeing.com and to introduce the People Economy to the world.  This is a calling that has been haunting me for more than 10 years and I’m ready. 

Infobeing will make it easier for anyone to do as I have done – to break free from your job, do what you want, where you want, earn a living, and live fully.  The fundamental requirement for living in this way is to begin to value relationships with other people over relationships with companies and institutions.  This is what the People Economy delivers.

I am also a husband and a proud father to a 5-year-old daughter.