Bruised But Wiser, Net Casualties Return To The Fray
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday August 17, 2001
To hell with Nasdaq. Three of Australia's best known but unsuccessful Internet entrepreneurs have returned to the high-tech industry.
* Ruby Blessing, who resigned from Spike almost two years ago, joined marketing consultancy One-Brand Development this week.
* Damien Brady, who has spent more than a year recovering after eisa's implosion, will launch a sports-based broadband content service next month.
* David Gold, who was forced to sell dstore for a song to the ill-fated Harris Scarfe, is already ``in full swing" with a secret technology business backed by a high-profile but unnamed financier.
Mr Gold, still only 30 years old, had dozens of offers following his departure from dstore including, it is believed, an approach by Mr Kerry Packer. Mr Packer's ecorp lost millions of dollars investing in dstore. Far less tempting, says Mr Gold, were four offers to join Amway.
In the end, after taking time off with his family, he decided to ``go down the entrepreneurial path again". Although dstore's backers killed dstore by refusing to hand over any more money, Mr Gold has found others willing to invest in his new venture.
``There are two groups one that sees failure as being a valuable experience, a stepping stone to greater things, and there will be others that write you off because of that [failure]," he said. ``I certainly have found that many parts of the business community have embraced my experience."
Ms Blessing has spent the best part of a year developing and pitching four projects. But 31-year-old Mr John Ford who describes Ms Blessing as ``before her time" eventually made an offer too good to refuse.
She has joined nine other partners at Ford's One-Brand Development, a self-funded operation which conducts market research and brand development for ad agencies. It also has an in-house ``innovation" centre where Ms Blessing will continue to develop her own projects while designing digital branding concepts for clients.
``Why do we keep coming back, why do we still do this?" Ms Blessing asked yesterday. ``As somebody who just believes in this whole medium being a fantastic tool, there's still work to be done."
Much of her work at One would involve salvaging interactive strategies created by Web designers who did not know what they were doing for clients who did not know what they wanted, she said.
``Everyone lost sight of where we were going and got sidetracked into the whole ego and greed trip," she said of the Internet boom times. ``I'm leaving it all behind. You read all these stories about people lamenting the good old days it's like, get over it."
No-one in the dot com industry had more to ``get over" than Mr Brady, the 34-year-old former chief of eisa, who watched a $325 million deal with OzEmail fall apart. Mr Brady also endured various allegations from his fellow directors. None stuck, but he is relying on US investors to fund his new venture because, he says, he is still paying ``corporate penance" in Australia.
``I'm known well enough that people know me and what happened. The [eisa] concept was right, the timing was wrong. The people who I'm working with understand. They're betting on the fact that I can do it again and I can do it again."
Mr Brady is preparing to launch a broadband sports Webcasting business. He will not reveal the name, but says he has ``a number of contracts in place" to put surfing and motorsports events online for ISPs and other broadband service providers.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This