10/12 magazine Winter 2009 : Page 19
D DURING COLLEGE, I interned [in 1996] with a biomedical start-up company here in New Orleans. It was a star-studded group of folks that were involved: MIT grads, Harvard and Yale med school grads, really bright minds, working on patents and such. The start-up environment was so exciting to me because the idea of bringing a product from conceptual- ization to actualization in the market was fascinating. revenue whatsoever. In 2001, we made $34,000.I remember when we broke $200,000, I thought, ‘wow.’” “That first year,we had no I ENDED UP TAKING a semester off. During that time, I was also working with my aunt at her magazine to help her with her project she had created, which was an interactive multi- media CD giving information to hotel con- cierges. She had no technology expertise, so she continued to keep as a CD. This was the late- to mid-90s, and the Internet really hadn’t become a very applicable technology. So I finished college and came back to work for my aunt the summer I graduated. I asked her if she would mind if I pursued an appli- cation for the program. I went to work for a technology company, and brought the idea for a joint venture with my aunt. The idea was to build this concierge reservations product. Around this time, there was quite a bit of buzz in the world about the dot-com boom. I convinced both the magazine and the software development company they needed to sell the joint venture. I secured some family money and bought the intellectual property for $28,000,which I think was a pretty awesome deal. That will get you a decent car these days. I formed iSeatz and opened its doors on Aug. 1, 1999. BY THE MONTH OF OCTOBER [1999], we’d already raised our first round of venture capital, through angel investment money. We’d raised about $200,000, which to me was all the money in the world, but not as much as I thought it was. I was working out of my uncle’s law firm’s attic in the French Quarter. The attic actually had a leak in the roof where our servers were, so when it rained, we had to move them around. I started with one person doing it for sweat equity with me; by the end of December [1999], I had three to five people. I decided in January [2000] to expand beyond New Orleans, so we moved into New York. That first year,we had no revenue whatso- ever. In 2001,we made $34,000. I remember when we broke $200,000, I thought, “Wow.” I www.1012corridor.com tell you, it’s a hell of a lot harder to make your first million than is to get more. I thought, “Well,we made it to $1 million; we should be able to make it to $10 million. It’s only 10 times as hard.” In 2004, our revenue was about $1.1 million. This year,we will do probably $30 million. Sixty million is probably where we’ll be next year. WE’VE ADDED SOME NEW products. In 2004 and 2005,we only focused on things to do when you get to a city—restaurants, tours and theatre tickets. And then in 2006,we add- ed the capability to begin to sell hotel reserva- tions and book rental cars, and that additional product line has really increased our ability to generate revenue, and hence the explosive trajectory—or speed vertical climb— we’ve had. We’re still a small company in terms of employees. We’ve got about 28 full-time people and 40 full-time contractors. I SEE BUSINESS PEOPLE getting involved in too many things. They’re just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, and spread themselves too thin, so that many times they sacrifice the very thing they started. It’s the innovator’s dilemma; certainly the en- iSeatz revenueS 1999 ........................................ Founded 2000 .................................................$0 2001 .......................................$34,000 2002 ......................................$100,000 2004 ................................... $1.1 million 2007 ................................... $8.1 million 2008 .................................... $30 million 2009* .................................. $60 million *Projected trepreneur’s dilemma. I’m not going to be an advisor or assist anyone in business. I’m going to focus on this and give it every ounce of attention I have. Our most significant moment really was landing our first ma- jor marquee client,Mastercard. We were on dire straits in terms of funding, this was like in 2003 and we were almost out of cash. Landing Mastercard saved us, and I took that money and reinvested it into the oth- er side of our business, the travel side. Then we landed a considerable consulting project with Orbitz. Those two things happened within a matter of months. OVER THE YEARS, I’VE HAD TO PURGE my senior management team because it takes a very different sort of person to build a business than it does to run a business. If you’re a $40 million or $50 million business, or if in 2010 we’re at $100 million, it’s a very different set of rules. So I had to bring in people with been- there-done-that experience. That’s one of most difficult things I’ve had to do. At that moment, I have to decide, “Do I want to keep this a small business, or do I want to try to make this a mid-sized company with real business issues?” RIGHT NOW, we’re globalizing our company. I got an e-mail forwarded to me from my COO that one of his employees sent.He’s the project manager on one of our projects launching involving an international airline. My COO was in Budapest, and I was in L.A. speaking at conference. The e-mail said, “At 7 a.m., I had a call from India; at 8 a.m., I got a call from Holland; and I had a 9 a.m. call with Chile. I’ve been to three continents—all before 10 a.m.” It’s really cool to see us globalizing. IT SOUNDS SO completely outrageous, but I’d like to see the business get to about $250 million in sales, and then I think from there a new world will open up to us. And it’s in our five-year plan to do that. If we can do that— achieve a quarter of a billion dollars in sales— we’ve really arrived on an international level. I look around and always feel like could be doing better and should be doing better and I push myself harder. As a manager, you have to be willing to average up to next tier of the play- ing field. You can do that, or take a place on the board and let someone else run the company. I happen to like this job. 10/12 MAGAZINE • winter 2009 19
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