This month, CEOs from three Internet companies answer our question:
Spending wisely.
"We recently found new office space which we'll be moving into soon. We went to Virginia to this mammoth warehouse to look for used furniture. I'm trying to get this company up and running, so I don't want to spend a lot of money on furniture."
-David Rothenberg, CEO, MDLinx
Start-ups are always short on time and money. Mr. Rothenberg is getting ready to launch a network of 34 news and information Web sites targeted at physicians. He's been traveling the globe to raise funding and he's preparing to hire a staff. Like most CEOs, he spends money only when he has to. Burning cash to build your products is one thing, says Mr. Rothenberg, but using it to buy unnecessarily expensive furniture is another.
Growing quickly.
"This is a team of engineers discussing things I can't even begin to understand. That's probably why I wasn't even invited to the meeting. But this is a good thing—because it means the company is getting large enough to run itself, without my needing to sign off on every decision."
-Will Clemens, CEO and co-founder, Respond.com
Respond.com, an online shopping service which matches buyers and sellers, has grown—like many Internet companies—at an alarming speed. Less than a year ago, Mr. Clemens was borrowing office space from one of his investors and had no employees. Today, Respond.com has over 60 employees and has already moved offices once to accommodate growth. One indication of that growth, says Mr. Clemens, is that he can no longer attend every meeting in the company.
Choosing properly.
"On a Saturday afternoon we sat in a room for six hours straight and discussed whether or not we wanted to fundamentally change part of our strategy. It was a long day, but fortunately we ended up making some good decisions."
-George Henriquez, co-founder, eBricks
eBricks, a company which plans to streamline the construction business by using an online trading network, got its start as part of a Harvard Business School business plan competition. The six founders submitted the idea and took home second place. Before they'd even graduated from school, eBricks' founders eschewed their job offers from well-established companies and went looking for venture funding to start their own. In May 1999, they launched the company and George Henriquez, one of the founders, says it's been all work since then
Start
Founders' Note
Dateline
Dispatches about the interaction
of culture and technology.
Through a lens
People use cameras to answer
a question.
Backlash
Killthedot.com
Translator
Software interprets the classics
Send-up
Satire and ridicule.
Features
Silicon Valley
The Enigmatic Craig McCaw
Finish
Fiction
"Cyber-sized"
History of...
the typewriter.
The Watch
Reviews and commentary
Wind-up
Physicist Carver Mead explains why innovation requires courage and luck.
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