Factors Pushing the
Dot-Com Entrepreneurial Revival in Charlotte
The aftermath of the
dot-com collapse, coupled with the disastrous events of September 11th and the destruction of the World Trade Center, produced a growing uneasiness in the business community, and consequently a very unstable and unpredictable office market.
Add to this the 12 blogs run by Gawker Media's Nick Denton (who made a bushel during the last
dot-com boom) and the 75 managed by Weblogs Inc.'s Jason Calacanis (who, as impresario of the now-defunct Silicon Alley Reporter, was one of the biggest inflators of the last Internet bubble).
Many companies jumped on the
dot-com bandwagon in the mid-to-late '90s to create online brokerage businesses to sell insurance.
Indeed, recent technological innovations coupled with surges of investor interest make clean tech one of the most promising new sectors since the
dot-com era.
At the Bravo Awards ceremony that year, organizers recall, a group from one
dot-com that flatly refused to be seated near a rival
dot-com.
It isn't as exciting as the
dot-com days, where superconfident MBAs and brilliant college dropouts in faded jeans and T-shirts pulled down seven-figure paychecks, refused to acknowledge their mistakes and were encouraged to think not only outside the box but, as the hippie generation used to say, "way out"
Research firm VentureOne has shown that one in five of the
dot-com companies launched in the late 1990s went bust before first stage backers saw any return on their investment.
Executives at start-up companies wistfully reminisce about the
dot-com heyday, when venture-funding deals were scrawled on cocktail napkins or closed on a handshake.
(Even my uncle in central Appalachia joined the
dot-com gold rush, something about selling auto parts on the Internet.)
By 1997, communicators had a burning question, "Who's in charge of electronic communication?" The
dot-com generation had arrived, and techies were moving into the communication arena.
Can you still make a profitable go of it in today's leaner-and-meaner
dot-com world?
The story so far: Having purchased land in the Catskills on which to build a conference center for his Wellness Solutions Group,
dot-com entrepreneur Mike Smith has made an exciting discovery.
He says so himself, repeatedly, in his book F'd Companies: Spectacular
Dot-Com Flameouts.
