High-stakes start-ups

(continued from previous page)

respite from the high-pressure venture capital scene is a welcome one, at least for now. Each of them rode the highs and lows of the late-1990s Internet boom at other high-tech start-ups--an experience they'd rather not repeat.

Hazarika's wild ride began in 1996 with Moai Technologies, where he was a founder. The San Francisco software company was a player in the then-hot arena of online marketplaces for business supplies and services and followed the same arc as many other dot-coms in that market.

Moai raised $70 million in venture capital, hired 350 employees, and filed to sell its shares to the public. Then the Internet bust of 2000 hit and Moai withdrew its initial public offering plan. It ran up a big debt and sold itself to a Pittsburgh start-up for about $6 million.

"I can't even believe the way we spent money. Someone made a huge mistake."

--Brad Meador, ClearContext co-founder, on his experience with an early dot-com start-up

Meador had a taste of New Economy excesses as "culture czar" (his actual title) at Xcelerate, an Internet consulting firm based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with backing from the Carlyle Group and Idealab. At its peak, in 2001, the firm flew in 350 employees from across the country and put them up at a fancy Florida resort for the weekend.

Two months later, Meador was laying people off, including one of his best friends. "I can't even believe the way we spent money," he says. "Someone made a huge mistake."

Back to reality
At ClearContext--a one-room office in a plain two-story building next to a freeway overpass--Meador and Hazarika are getting in touch with their frugal sides. An empty cardboard box is perched precariously in front of a skylight on the rafters above. The box, along with the fan whirring in the doorway, helps reduce the afternoon heat, Meador explains.

The space is just big enough for the two of them and their chief technology officer, Frank Kang. Kang, whose wife brings in an executive salary, is the only one who doesn't play poker. He has a knack, though, for finding good deals on computer equipment offered on eBay.

"Frank is an expert at finding things really cheap," Meador says.

Intelligence capital
The secret behind the CIA's venture capital arm

In-Q-Tel CEO Gilman Louie is a venture capitalist who helps deliver new technology to the intelligence community.

Glamorous it's not. But Meador says he's glad to be there. He says he turned down two other job offers, one of which paid a six-figure salary, to start ClearContext. He has high hopes for the company and its product, ClearContext Inbox Manager, which he is eager to demonstrate.

The program, which the company released in October for $29.95 a copy, is basically an Outlook add-on--one of hundreds of such products. But the product's mission is worthy: It's aimed at helping Outlook users who are overwhelmed by hundreds of e-mails every day sort and prioritize incoming messages.

After it's installed, a process that takes a matter of minutes, Inbox Manager uses a set of patent-pending algorithms to determine which messages are high-priority and shuttles them to the top of the in-box. The software also color-codes messages to signal their urgency or lack thereof and groups together all messages in a thread. The program takes its cues from numerous factors, including the sender of the message, the people to whom it's addressed and whether the user replies to it.

Outlook itself offers a rudimentary version of these features, but Inbox Manager is a much more sophisticated tool, Meador says. While Outlook can prioritize messages based on a single characteristic, Inbox Manager weighs several factors to create a composite score, giving it a more nuanced and accurate picture of message priority, he says. In addition, the program works in the background, fine-tuning rules based on the dynamics of a particular in-box, while Outlook requires users to set up and change rules by hand.

Internet users have downloaded thousands of copies of the free 30-day trial version of the program. The number of paying customers is in the hundreds and the biggest block are--who else?--Microsoft employees, Hazarika said.

Already at work on a 2.0 version of the program, Hazarika and Meador are trying to keep their expectations and their poker playing in check.

"It started as a hobby, but ended up being a revenue source that allowed us to keep paying ourselves and paying the rent," Hazarika said of online poker. "We definitely didn't plan on that. But there are many ways that entrepreneurs scramble to get the bills paid--this is one more example of that."

They hope to grow the company into a profitable and successful business that furnishes each of them with comfortable paychecks. If Microsoft or someone else offered to buy them for a few million dollars along the way, that wouldn't be so bad either, Meador said.

"I do hope there'll be some reward beyond what I'd make" going in another direction, he said. "But in the end, what's really important to me is to work at a small start-up with two guys I really trust."

[ttul]

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[anjotay]

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[bit-looter]

which am I to beleive????

From the "About" page:
"Deva Hazarika - CEO
Deva focuses on product direction, sales and marketing, and corporate partnership efforts. Deva previously was a founder of Moai Technologies, an enterprise e-commerce software company that grew to over $14M in annual revenues during his five years there. He served in various executive roles and sat on the Board of Directors.
"

$14M...what happen to all that doug?

[jenni2009]

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