You've probably heard the famous examples of tech leaders who dropped out of college to start their businesses — the minds behind Apple, Microsoft, Spotify, Twitter and Facebook all did it.
But when Erik Finman was going to Coeur d'Alene High School about a decade ago, oddly enough it was a book by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian — who did graduate college — that helped inspire him to drop out before even finishing high school.
In 2011, at just 12, Finman had invested in a new cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. By 2013, he'd turned a roughly $1,000 gift from his grandmother into more than $100,000.
Despite his financial success, by 15 he was struggling in school. Though he enjoyed participating in a robotics club, Finman says he was getting Cs on his homework and having a hard time finding value in classwork. Ohanian's book — Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed — resonated with the young teen, with its focus on using the internet for entrepreneurial endeavors.
"I don't think I would've ever dropped out of high school without that moral permission that came from that book and that advice," Finman says.
He dropped out and made a deal with his parents: If he didn't make $1 million by the time he turned 18, he'd go back to school. He started an online education business that he soon sold for more Bitcoin, reaching his $1 million goal, and then left Rathdrum for Silicon Valley.
Since then he's found success in several cryptocurrency-related ventures and has gotten more involved in conservative politics. More recently he's been drawn to the telecommunications world.
As of last month, the 25-year-old is back living in Idaho (this time in Boise), where he just launched Idaho Mobile, a budget wireless provider.
Idaho Mobile is now offering cheap unlimited phone plans — "I don't like to say affordable, I like to say cheap," Finman quips — ranging from $12 to $42 per month. Each plan will go up by $8 a month after the introductory rate. After the high speed data limit on each plan is hit, users will still be able to access the internet, the speeds will just be slower.
Like other budget plans, Idaho Mobile contracts to use major carriers' cell towers. Without the overhead those companies have (or some of the perks they offer to customers), the plans can be offered at a better rate.
The service can be used in all 50 states, but Finman's long-term goal is to invest in more equipment in rural areas that lack coverage throughout his home state of Idaho. He'd like to start the process of expanding coverage next year, starting in North Idaho.
"North of Sandpoint is probably the first place we're going to do that," Finman says. "As of today, it's just cheaper, and then starting early next year we're going to actually start the process of applying for those permits and installing stuff and paying someone to go set it up."
People can keep their same number if they'd like to switch to Idaho Mobile, and the website offers a form that can help determine if your device can transfer. Users need to bring their own phone to the plan, and those devices need to be paid off in order to transfer service.
For customer service, an online chat function can help answer questions during business hours, and once someone is a paying customer they can access help over the phone during business hours, Finman says.
Uniquely, Finman is offering to provide the cell service for free to people who are experiencing homelessness, paying for their service out of his own pocket.
"If you're an unhomed person, if your income is extremely low or you have no income, I'll pay from my own pocket for you to get it for free," Finman says. "We'll try to accept as many people as we can into that program."
THE RISE OF BUDGET PHONES
Phone users have likely noticed the uptick in budget wireless providers in recent years. Verizon offers a trimmed down version of its unlimited service through Visible. Mint Mobile, Metro and Google Fi are versions of T-Mobile. AT&T has Cricket Wireless. Boost Mobile used to be Sprint.
Most major carriers already contract with other companies to share towers in order to provide their nationwide coverage. Budget plans offer similar access, although download speeds are often a lower priority for those plans than for the major carriers using the equipment.
However, the New York Times tested multiple discount providers (many of which allow the use of eSIM cards) this year and found that the download speeds from each of the brands tested were more than sufficient to stream shows on apps like Netflix and Hulu.
Idaho Mobile's long-term plans to invest in equipment and increase coverage could be uniquely appreciated in Idaho, which has some of the largest gaps in wireless coverage in the country, according to broadband data from the Federal Communications Commission.
While many of the areas with no reception in Idaho are in the wilderness, Boundary, Bonner, Kootenai, Shoshone and Benewah counties have a huge variation in cell reception, with some areas showing as little as 0.58% coverage by any type of mobile broadband (3G, 4G, or 5G) and others showing 100% coverage, according to an FCC map.
Aside from billing issues, the next largest category of phone complaints received by the FCC this year have been about availability (including difficulty making or receiving calls in rural areas), with nearly 16,000 unique complaints year-to-date nationwide.
The goal, Finman says, is where good reception already exists, to make it cheaper. Where it doesn't exist, he wants to invest. He says he's the only funder behind Idaho Mobile.
"There's a lot of dead spots," Finman says. "I can fund equipment and expand to places that maybe necessarily, you know, Verizon wouldn't go out of their way to spend money for a very small town."
Idaho Mobile doesn't require long-term contracts, and it allows users to search their address to see if 4G or 5G coverage will be decent in their area before selecting a plan. A search for the Inlander offices in the 5G haven of downtown Spokane showed that 5G coverage wouldn't be great, but 4G would be readily available.
DANCING BANS, FREE SPEECH AND ACCESS
So, jumping back to Finman's claim to fame — being one of, if not the youngest Bitcoin millionaire(s) — how did a 12-year-old find out about Bitcoin in 2011? Those were the days when the cryptocurrency was mostly being discussed in law enforcement circles and used on the dark web.
It's even stranger than you'd think. Finman says his older brother (12 years his senior) took him to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., to attend a protest. The cause? Public outcry over the arrest of multiple people for peacefully dancing inside the memorial. One man had been body slammed by park police.
So in mid-2011, the middle schooler found himself dancing with a few hundred protesters at the memorial, and then quickly dispersing when police yet again shut down the antics, a la Footloose. Finman recalls glancing at the shirt of a guy running away next to them and asking what the "B" with a dollar sign meant.
"He's like, 'It's Bitcoin man, it's going to end Wall Street, bro,' and ran off," Finman recalls. (The Occupy Wall Street movement would start that fall in New York, with protesters decrying corporate greed and bailouts in the wake of the Great Recession.)
Fast forward a few years and Finman was in Silicon Valley teaching others about cryptocurrency and continuing to develop his thoughts around free speech.
By 2021, he introduced the "Freedom Phone," which was pitched as an "uncensored" option to avoid Google or Apple devices and the restrictive policies their app stores or specific apps had at the time. It was a cheap smartphone with an operating system adapted from Android's open source code, and pitched for $500 on a slew of conservative shows. The phone came preloaded with apps like Parler and One America News Network, and received pushback from journalists at the time, who questioned the cheap quality of the phone and whether the operating system was truly a better option than devices designed by major companies.
The initial sales were through the roof. However, that success came at a price: PayPal and other processors didn't believe the brand new company was trustworthy when it brought in millions of dollars in the first week.
"We did $3.5 million in sales in the first week, which is pretty incredible. But the problem was, I had no idea, you're not allowed to make money overnight in this country," Finman says, noting that some processors froze the money in reserve for up to a year. "That was a huge pain to deal with, because it was a tremendous success."
"I'm a right-wing person but ... I think connectivity should be cheap for people who can afford it or free for people that are unhomed."
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That resulted in court battles with the payment processors and a Utah company Finman had partnered with, and delays in getting the phones out to customers. Still, Finman says customers ultimately had positive reviews.
He downplays the importance of marketing of the phone to a conservative audience. He says his real passion is pushing back on limits on free speech, and he imagines that had the democratic-socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders won the presidential election in 2016, Finman might have targeted people on the left who felt their speech had been unfairly limited online. Plus, cryptocurrency apps were being left out of the traditional app stores, and he wanted to make them easier to access.
"I've always had a passion for allowing people to say how they think and be who they are. On that project it was definitely about creating an app store that wasn't necessarily limited in what was allowed on there," Finman says. "I believe connectivity is a right, not a privilege."
Thinking back on his upbringing in North Idaho, Finman recalls how phone calls would regularly drop (and still do in some areas) and how limited his internet service was at home.
He knows his family was well off compared to others. One of his robotics teammates not only didn't have internet access at home, but their family couldn't afford to keep the electricity on, Finman says. That's part of what's driving his commitment with Idaho Mobile to provide the phone service free to those who need help the most.
"I am a right-wing person, but I fundamentally believe in the right to free speech for everybody and the right to connectivity for everybody," Finman says. "I think connectivity should be cheap for people that can afford it or free for people that are unhomed." ♦
