Let's take a guess on how Peter started HARO.

I'll guess he was in the green room of a show and a producer was looking for a source so he started emailing his friends to see if they were interested in the lead?

Probably waiting at an airport somewhere and was looking for something to do. Actually, wasn't there a cap on Facebook when you'd reached 600 friends? Happy Thanksgiving, Peter!

frustrated that he had to pay for a service that was sub-par - and he knew he could make it great without any subscription fees.

Frustrated that there was no competition for that "other" source, Peter started HARO at a bar on a dare from one of his geeky/techy/PR buddies.

He got sick of all the phone call from reporters/PR people and started a group on Facebook!

He read his own book and wondered if he could go one better than the sources mentioned in there?

He started a group on Facebook, ran into arbitrary limits on numbers of friends Facebook allowed, started a mailing list, and very quickly surpassed that other PR list which charged lots of money. And now here we are today.