This weekend while cleaning out an old file cabinet, I came across some color laser prints of a project I worked on a few years ago. OK, more than a few. More like twelve. Anyway, it got me thinking about how much has changed since then—and how little.
In 1995, a buddy of mine and I decided to leave our Mac software development jobs to start an Internet company. What that meant we didn't exactly know, but we had both been on USENET for years, had spent too many hours playing Netrek, and had started using this cool new thing called the web.
"That," we said to ourselves, "is going to be big."
So we incorporated First Internet, Inc., leased a T1 from AlterNet, bought the requisite network hardware (it's amazing what people will send you with nothing but a purchase order), hooked up a couple of PowerMac 6100's, and starting hosting web sites for several local business (Shiner Beer among them) at exorbitant rates. It was a great business while it lasted, meaning it covered the monthly cost of the T1.
But a few months later we lost our two biggest customers and my partner decided to bail out. I was left with a too-big office, a $1,600/month ISP bill, and virtually no revenue. As I began the process of maxing out my credit cards to cover the bills, I looked desperately for what to do next.
At the time I was 26 years old, and my biggest problem was trying to figure out where to go to lunch every day. So I decided to solve that problem, which was surely shared by lots of other people, and put together an online restaurant guide. Remember, these were the days when Microsoft was just starting to think about "content", and eight years before Yelp was even founded.
This was also a time when the components of the now-ubiquitous LAMPP platform were in their infancy. I built the application using hand-coded HTML and a database package called Lasso on Macs running System 7.5, all fronted by the well-meaning but tragically buggy WebSTAR web server software.
The Austin Internet Restaurant Guide won a respectable number of customers but was never a commercial success. It did however help me understand the issues involved in creating database-backed web sites. And it was this understanding that helped me see the tremendous value in what a young local company called Vignette was about to start selling. I joined Vignette in September 1997, which turned out to be a good move.
A lot has changed since 1996. In fact, just about everything has changed, at least with regard to the Internet. It's become a fundamental part of business and of daily life, and its business and technology structures have matured to reflect that.
But some things haven't changed. When I look for a business to start (or join) I still look for solutions to the problems that I face personally. That's how I decided not only to create the Austin Internet Restaurant Guide and later join Vignette but also to create Spanning Sync with my partner Larry Hendricks.
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