Dan Borislow

Daniel Marc Borislow (September 21, 1961 – July 21, 2014) was an American entrepreneur, sports team owner, inventor, and thoroughbred horse breeder.

Borislow was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Widener University.

In 1989, he founded Tel-Save, Inc. to resell access to AT&T long-distance lines.

In 1989, Borislow founded Tel-Save when he was in his 20s to resell access to AT&T long-distance lines.

The company was based in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and its primary market was toward small and medium-sized businesses.

Borislow took the company public in 1995, and two years later brokered a $100 million deal with AOL at the "Cafe L’Europe", Palm Beach.

Borislow took the company public in 1995 and had an initial public offering of three million shares.

By 1997, Tel-Save was making $20 million a year.

In 1997, Borislow negotiated a three-year deal with America Online that granted Tel-Save exclusive marketing rights to sell long-distance service to AOL users.

AOL users, meanwhile, would now be billed online for their local, long distance, cellular, and internet services.

His original asking price was $50 million, but after negotiations, the figure increased to $100 million, in addition to half of future profits and 15 percent of the company's stock.

Having rescued a reeling AOL from Chapter 11, Borislow was compared to Ted Turner for his vision and marketing abilities by Bob Pittman, president of AOL.

This deal with Borislow skyrocketed AOL's stock prices 231% over the next year and catapulted them to be the dominant online provider with no runner up in sight.

In December of that year, Borislow was behind the merger of Tel-Save and STF, a similar company that provided telecommunications services to office buildings.

In early 1998, Tel-Save had sales of $300 million and was valued by Wall Street investors at $2 billion.

At its peak in early 1998, Tel-Save had sales of $300 million and was valued by Wall Street investors at $2 billion.

His personal stock in the company was $500 million.

Borislow's America Online deal was the catalyst for other "portal deals" with AOL.

However, due to the financial strain of paying off the AOL deal, Tel-Save lost $221 million in 1999, and Borislow sold his stock for approximately $300 million and retired.

In his brief retirement, he focused on his horse racing career.

The company's fortunes turned due to the financial strain of the AOL deal, and following an annual loss of $221 million in 1998, he resigned as CEO of the company on January 1, 1999.

Gabriel Battista was named CEO in his absence.

Tel-Save is now known as Talk America.

He then invested in his own long-distance network by deploying five Lucent 5ESS-2000 switches throughout the United States.

After selling most of his horses in 2004, Borislow set forth plans for a new voice-over-IP business which became the magicJack.

In 2005, after retiring from business to focus on his horse racing career, Borislow set forth plans for a new voice-over-IP business, with an initial name of Talk4free.

He created YMAX Communications Corporation in April 2006 as a communications and equipment service.

YMAX's profits come from the production of the magicJack, a small device which can be plugged into a computer's USB port and allows for unlimited calling from regular telephones.

Invented in 2007, the magicJack is a small product that is plugged into a computer's USB port and allows for unlimited calling from regular telephones.

CEO Borislow invented the product in 2007 and had applied for patents from the U.S. government while he and Donald Burns shared the payment of $25 million to start up the company.

Before Borislow launched a widespread television campaign in January 2008, the company sold less than 1,000 magicJacks per day.

By June, he was selling 8,000-9,000 per day and had roughly 500,000 subscribers in total.

Borislow attributes its success to its pricing, at $40 in the first year of service and $20 each year thereafter.

Although its voice quality has been criticized, Ted Kritsonis of The Globe and Mail said the "MagicJack was still better than most cell phones I've tried."

In 2009, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum investigated a claim that Borislow falsely marketed the magicJack as having a free 30-day trial of the product.

In 2010, YMAX, the company behind the magicJack, merged with an Israeli company and became a publicly traded corporation.

In 2011, Borislow purchased a controlling share of the Washington Freedom women's professional soccer team.

He had a brief turbulent relationship with other owners and the players which ended in a battle of lawsuits and the termination of the soccer team and league.

Borislow and his family lived in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Borislow died from an apparent heart attack on July 21, 2014.