William Manzanares IV was born and raised in the Tacoma area of Washington State and is an active member of the http://www.puyallup-tribe.com/ (Puyallup Tribe). He is a serial entrepreneur, having owned and operated successful smoke shops, convenience stores, and restaurants since 2005. William is passionate about helping small business owners as well as struggling readers.

To that end he has written I Can’t Read: A Guide to Success Through Failure, telling the story about being unable to read as a youth and struggling with dyslexia, William hopes his new book will equip kids to improve their literacy and inspire them to pursue their dreams. He spends much of his time speaking with students about career planning and goal setting.

“I was excited. He offered high returns … and an equity stake in everything in the business. He talked a big game of how he was publicized everywhere and I said … ‘Okay, let’s do this’ … He did say after signing … checks that were written out in the contract, I’ll just pay you big chunk payments. So I got like a $5,000 payment, then a $10,000 payment … that took about six months to get those and then when a final payment bounced and I think he tried to write me another $15,000 check, it just didn’t go through. This was like six or seven months after I gave him the money and I went: ‘Oh, what did I do? (What have I done?)”

William Manzanares

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Worst investment ever Meets publisher selling Super Bowl tickets Will met the publisher of a local weekly newspaper who was also the PR representative for his native American tribe in Tacoma because he said he could get all kinds of tickets and Will wanted to take his daughter to see the Seattle Seahawks American football team play in the Super Bowl for the second time in its history. The guy was always around talking about his connections and that he always knew someone who could get show tickets to anything. Will let his guard down.

Will invests US$60,000 in regional newspaper The man then started talking to Will about signing up other cities for his newspaper business, that he had just signed up another city and that he needed some investment money to sign up more cities in the Pacific Northwest region. The amount required was US$60,000 so will loaned it to him and got a lawyer to draw up a contract for the deal. Will was excited as the publisher was offering an equity stake in the business, high returns and “he talked a big game of how he was publicized everywhere and I said … ‘Okay, let’s do this’ … He did say after signing … checks that were written out in the contract, I’ll just pay you big chunk payments. So I got like a $5,000 payment, then a $10,000 payment … that took about six months to get those and then when a final payment bounced and I think he tried to write me another $15,000 check, it just didn’t go through. This was like six or seven months after I gave him the money and I went: ‘Oh, what did I do? (What have I done?).”

Sees state of the accounts, realizes his money is gone Will called the publisher, inherently wanting to be a nice guy, and the principal made excuses, said he was sick, blamed everyone else but himself, but in the end let polite and persistent Will into the company’s offices to consult and maybe try to save the company. Will then spent half an hour with the bookkeeper (while talking to Andrew he admits he should have done this a long time ago). After he saw the books he realized he was never going to regain his money. The principal owed printers and many other people. He also was the public relations guy for Will’s tribe, so he had been telling people including Will that the tribe owed him a lot of money, and the tribe has a multimillion-dollar casino, so...