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Between them, Gary Culliss, 29, and Mike Cassidy, 36, havequalifications sure to make most reassess their own"achievements." Cassidy has won a 2,000-mile car raceacross Australia, competed in marathons and studied jazz piano atthe esteemed Berklee School of Music. Oh, and the Harvard BusinessSchool grad co-founded and sold a company before starting DirectHit Technologies Inc. with Harvard Law School alum Culliss. (Who,by the way, wrote code at age 12, was a registered patent agentwith the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and invented thetechnology that would drastically reduce the pain of Internetsearching.)
The innovative technology of which we speak is the Direct HitPopularity Engine, available at partner search engines like HotBotand Lycos, or at http://www.directhit.com. During hispatent-agent stint, Culliss realized the most efficient way toperform patent searches was to ask colleagues where they'dfound needed information. The co-founder (who saved Direct Hit$50,000 in legal fees with his patent expertise) thought, Why notcreate an Internet search engine that would list only the mostpopular and relevant sites, as chosen by other users?
Culliss developed and entered the Direct Hit business plan inMIT's 1998 $50K Entrepreneurship Competition, the hotbed ofnetworking and collaboration that brought Cassidy (who'd wonthe 1991 competition) and Culliss together. The newly formed teamdidn't just take the grand prize--within a month, they alsosecured their first round of $1.4 million in venture capital fromSilicon Valley investment giant Draper Fisher Jurvetson and gavetheir $30,000 prize money to fellow finalists. Cassidy recounts thefunding miracle: "We walked in, pitched them at 8:15 a.m., andat 4:30 p.m., they said `OK, here's yourdeal.' "
It's not always that easy. If you're new to business,building an advisory board of experienced entrepreneurs beforehandhelps. "When we made our pitch, we had everything to start thecompany except the money," explains Culliss. "They jumpedat the opportunity to fund a company ready to go."
Now the Wellesley, Massachusetts, company, whose other partnersinclude Apple, LinkExchange, LookSmart and ZDNet, looks to gopublic and unveil its shopping engine this fall (its full searchengine launched this summer); expansion to Europe and Asia is alsoin progress. In this crazy world of Internet company mergers,Cassidy adds, Direct Hit's destiny changes daily:"You're just about to make a deal, and then oops, thecompany gets bought by someone else." Well, at least lifenever gets boring.
Threads For Tots
Four years of corporate strategic planning for Disney, LaurieMcCartney is all about consumer satisfaction. In the fashion offellow Disney alums who've started "ventures" likeeBay and eToys, she plans to head an empire of sites that cater tothe $100 billion-plus market spanning health, beauty, fashion andhome decor.
An empire has to start somewhere, so McCartney, 32, commencedwith a Web site, http://www.babystyle.com. Afterleaving Disney, she spent 1998 researching the expectant/new mothermarket. Realizing it's worth $12.5 billion and being pregnant,she didn't require a ton of persuading.
"I wrote the business plan while I was pregnant, gotventure capital funding while I was pregnant, and started thebusiness [in November 1998] after my son, [Jack], was born,"says McCartney, who expects her business, eStyle Inc., to exceed $1million in sales this year.
From McCartney's Web site, moms can peruse the offerings ofmore than 100 vendors touting stylish (yes, stylish) maternitywear, infant wear (including Euro-imports), baby gear and nurseryfurnishings. To ensure product appeal, eStyle employs"ambassadors" in major cities who ask for opinions inLamaze and Mommy and Me classes and do grass-roots marketing toboot. An added plus: Her customer service reps are moms, too.
You'd think bringing up baby and business would be trying.(Playpens and toys are standard at the company's Los Angelesheadquarters.) Says McCartney, the youngest of seven children, wholikes to bring order to chaos, "Jack is very much theinspiration, [and is] integral to the business, [so it's]easier to balance."
