Seattle Car Dealer’s Memoir Recounts Building the Internet’s First Auto Marketplace

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Martin S. Rood, a longtime Seattle-area automobile dealer, has published a memoir about founding DealerNet, which he describes as the first automotive online marketplace and one of the earliest commercial ventures on the internet. The book, titled "First Click: The Story of DealerNet The World’s First Automotive Online Marketplace," was published through Christian Faith Publishing.

According to the announcement, Rood’s path into e-commerce began in 1994 with a postcard invitation to a University of Washington seminar on the World Wide Web, at a point when few Americans had any direct experience of it. He had no background in programming or software development, the release states, but moved to put his Nissan and Volvo inventory online, a step he says had not been attempted before in the auto trade.

The memoir recounts the practical obstacles of that period: skeptical reporters, uncooperative internet service providers, and the basic work of explaining what a browser was to people who had never used one. Rood went on to found four more software and internet startups over the following decade, per the announcement, and the book also touches on his community involvement, including his role in his local church.

The narrative connects DealerNet’s rise to Seattle’s emergence as an early hub of internet commerce, a period that preceded Amazon’s growth in the same city. "This book captures not just the story of DealerNet, but the electricity of being present at a genuine inflection point in history," Rood said in the announcement. "I wanted readers to experience the uncertainty, the late nights, and the exhilaration of building something the world didn’t yet understand."

The publisher positions the book as a memoir for entrepreneurs and technology audiences, framed around risk-taking and timing as much as the mechanics of the business itself. "First Click" is available through major booksellers and online retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Google Play, and Barnes and Noble.

Studio CarryOnHarry finds the more interesting story here less about the book itself than the window it offers into how ordinary, non-technical business owners stumbled into building internet infrastructure before anyone had a name for what they were doing.

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