The early days of the New York Internet scene were similar to the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The men and women who pioneered the Internet in the mid-late 90s lived in a time marked by freneticism, enthusiasm and rapid hiring. Innovation was celebrated and there was a real spirit of anything’s possible.
It’s similar in many ways to the pervasive spirit in NYC’s tech community today. Last week, we interviewed dot.com legend Josh Harris, who went from being a bona fide New York City millionaire to bootstrapped artist with a harrowing vision of the future. This got me thinking about how many other great stories from that era need to be told.
All of these entrepreneurs began and remained in the New York City tech community. Never straying from Silicon Alley meant that they found something incredibly special about the small, collaborative and supportive milieu that is still pervasive in New York City’s tech scene today.
They began their careers on the Internet while Yahoo was still hosted on Stanford’s servers. It was a time before standard banner sizes or ad counting technologies. Instead of “Find me on Facebook” it was “Find me at this URL.” Stephan Paternot, Robert Levitan, Rich Forman, Jeff Stewart and Andrew Weinreich are entrepreneurs who didn’t let the collapse of the market and the implosion of the Internet space stop them from continuing to conquer.
Robert Levitan: iVillage and Flooz
On September 11, 2001, Robert Levitan woke up for the first time in 20 years without a job. He had just walked away from his company Flooz, an online payment platform which had to be shut down as a Russian mob was using it with stolen credit card numbers as part of a money laundering scheme. A company that had grown from zero to 30 million in sales in just 18 months, now owed $4 million dollars in 8 weeks. It was the largest bankruptcy case ever in terms of its 325,000 creditors, which had to be notified via email, the first time email was ever used as a form of legal communication to creditors. You know that 3 digit security number you have to enter when making a credit card payment online? You can thank this Flooz case for that.
Prior to Flooz, Levitan logged online for his first time one day before a meeting with AOL in January 1995. Levitan was chatty in the meeting and quickly saw the need for online communities; so he, along with two other co-founders decided to start their own company based on creating those mini social networks. iVillage launched in January 1996. 3 years later, the company was worth over a billion dollars when it went public in March of 1999. In 2006, it was acquired by NBC and now operates as a women’s content network.
Now Levitan, who’s never had a job working for anyone else in his life, is now the CEO of Pando Networks, which officially launched its first product in 2006. “Simply put, we believe that the Internet is the media distribution platform of choice, but new technologies are needed to help it scale,” explains Levitan. Pando Networks is now the largest gaming delivery network in the world, serving over 200 million game downloads a year.
CBM: When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
Robert Levitan: Oh, the 4th grade? That was when my twin brother and I started publishing a newspaper in PS6. Ever since then I’ve enjoyed entrepreneurial media-related ventures. I’ve always loved creating new products and working with people to bring those products to market.
CBM: What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life?
RV: I finally married at 47, and now I am 50 and have two kids. I was such a crazy entrepreneur that I never got married or thought about a family until recently. I’m incredibly proud of my children. It’s a whole different joy to create children and help them grow and develop.
Professionally, I’m also very proud of having started iVillage from scratch and taking it to IPO. It was a wide open field and anything was possible. People who were involved with Internet businesses in 1995 were a special breed; they were all excited about what they were doing. It was not about the money, it was about the excitement. And I don’t think that’s true today.
CBM: Will Pando be your last venture?
RV: No. At this point, I’m unemployable. I have to face the reality. I like running startups or I wouldn’t keep doing it. Working with smart people right out of college is fantastic. Giving them a lot of responsibility makes the business fun again. We’ve had to reinvent Pando a few times just to find the right market for this technology and that’s been a good process. The company is profitable and growing. Hopefully I will look back on it and have good memories. Today, there are 80 million installs of Pando software on people’s computers. But I know this isn’t the last stop. There will be something after this.
We are fortunate enough to live in a world that affords a lot of opportunity. It doesn’t get much more fun than that. It’s an incredibly meaningful place to be. And it’s a real privilege.
Article source: TNW http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/tfirDnWmUQA/