Humbly report, Peter, the audacity of some people! To publish this
article TODAY, on MSNBC, when SI is under attack by a hacker, ONLY
because MSFT has a hole in NT that you can drive a truck through, and
their "patch" couldn't cover a pin prick! Here is the whole thing, just
in case they pull it sometime in the future:Silicon Investor-less By
Barton CrockettMSNBCÿ[IMAGE: Brad Dryer, left, and Jeff Dryer]
Two-thirds of Silicon Investor's work force, founders Brad Dryer, 27,
left, and his brother Jeff, 30, in their former home/office in San Jose,
Calif. With a top online investment site and fistfuls of dollars
knocking on their door, why are these two brothers shunning investors?ÿ
ÿThey're investment pros on the cutting-edge of cyber-finance - brothers
Brad and Jeff Dryer, the Generation-X co-founders of Silicon Investor, a
top-rated stock discussion area on the World Wide Web. So why can't Brad
get an apartment without having his mother co-sign the lease, and why
was Jill - their only employee - very quiet in the morning?BECAUSE THE
DRYER brothers are investor-less in the Midwest, after turning down
several multimillion-dollar financing and takeover offers and moving
away from Silicon Valley. Remarkable forbearance, for money-men of
modest means. ÿÿÿÿ"We thought long and hard about what we wanted in
life," said Brad Dryer, 27, the younger of the two brothers. ÿÿÿÿ"We
weren't sure what we would do if we didn't have Silicon Investor. It's
what we want to do. It's an adventure." ÿÿÿÿThat adventure - Silicon
Investor - is a technology stock discussion area at www.techstocks.com.
ÿÿÿÿLaunched in August 1995, it has emerged as one of the most highly
rated destinations for people who like to research stocks online. It's
got background information on more than 1,000 technology stocks, with
charts and quotes. But it's claim to fame - the thing that's given it
Internet buzz - is its StockTalk discussion boards with more than 2.5
million, searchable and organized message postings.ÿÿÿÿTalk is cheap,
and so are messages. So the quality of postings on S.I., like other
online discussion forums including the Motley Fool, and the misc.invest
area on the Usenet, is mixed, with no shortage of erroneous and
amateurish comments and some apparent blatant efforts at market
manipulation. ÿÿÿÿBut savvy investors, from the rich and famous to the
small and obscure, also frequent Silicon Investor and other online stock
research areas, with many claiming that the talk on S.I. may be the best
on the Web. ÿÿÿÿ"It's one that I visit on almost a daily basis" a top
Silicon Valley venture capitalist said on the condition he not be named,
adding that S.I. lets him "stay on top of the scuttlebutt in the
market." ÿÿÿÿ"The discussions going on S.I. are a lot more technical and
more in depth than a lot of the research I see on Wall Street," said
Chester Lee, 33, supervisor at a Hercules, Calif.-based chemical
company. ÿÿÿÿLee says he surfs through Silicon Investor every night for
his personal portfolio. ÿÿÿÿS.I.'s share of net surfing traffic - 0.4
percent of all home-based surfers in November, according to researcher
Media Metrix - is less than many other popular financial destinations,
including top-rated Yahoo! Finance, with 4.6 percent, Quicken Financial
Network with 3.5 percent and Quote.com's 1.6 percent.'We had a great
deal of interest in Silicon Investor, and were ready to make an
investment.' - CHARLEY LAX Softbank Technology Ventures ÿÿÿÿBut Silicon
Investor is winning critical acclaim, with Internet World magazine
dubbing it the "best financial market site" on the Web and Barron's
weekly rating it among the top 20. ÿÿÿÿ"If technology is your game, you
won't find better discussion on the subject anywhere on the Internet,"
Barron's wrote. ÿÿÿÿSo who's behind this Web phenom? Well, like the
scientist working the gears behind a black curtain in the Wizard of Oz,
a pretty modest group of people. ÿÿÿÿOnly three people work at Silicon
Investor, the Dryer brothers, and a 26 year-old former administrative
assistant named Jill McKinney, who the Dryers met through the Internet
and hired as their Webmaster and press spokesperson. ÿÿÿÿBrad, who got a
computer engineering degree from Rice University in 1992, did the
programming work for the site, and Jeff, 30, who got a Masters of
Business Administration from the University of Missouri, designed the
look of the site, and put together background information on tech
companies. ÿÿÿÿMcKinney says that when she started, the brothers were
sleeping in their rented office in San Jose, Calif., working almost all
waking hours, and showering at a nearby health club. ÿÿÿÿ"I would come
into the office and one of them would be asleep," she said. ÿÿÿÿThe
brothers say they started the site because of an early interest in
investing, prompted by their father, a career General Electric manager,
who had them play stock-picking games as youngsters. ÿÿÿÿThey threw all
their savings into the venture, and by early 1997 were more than
$300,000 in debt to their parents, and a handful of other backers, with
no revenues to speak of. ÿÿÿÿNot that they needed to take on the debt.
ÿÿÿÿWithin a year, their tech stocks site had gotten so much traffic and
buzz that they had meetings with several major venture capitalists in
Silicon Valley. ÿÿÿÿThe Dryers claim - and knowledgeable sources confirm
- that at least two venture capital firms, Hummer Winblad Venture
Partners and Softbank Ventures, were willing to back the Dryers with
millions of dollars of financing in deals valuing their company at more
than $4 million. Furthermore, in 1996, the Dryers said they had a letter
of intent to sell the company to Web navigation guide Excite Inc. for
900,000 shares of Excite stock, valued at more than $5 million. (An
Excite spokeswoman declined to comment.) 'We weren't sure what we would
do if we didn't have Silicon Investor. It's what we want to do. It's an
adventure.' - BRAD DRYER co-founder, Silicon Investor ÿÿÿÿAny one of
those deals could have set the Dryers up to be millionaires, or even
better. Another Internet start-up, Hotmail, took on its first venture
financing at the time the Dryers were first getting offers, and at the
end of December Hotmail was purchased by Microsoft Corp. in an all stock
deal reportedly worth at least $300 million. ÿÿÿÿBut the Dryers turned
down the venture financing and takeover offers because they thought
better deals would come later and because they didn't want to lose
control. Indeed, late in 1997, they moved from San Jose to Overland
Park, Kan., to be closer to their family, and get away from all the deal
inquires flowing in from venture capitalists and other Internet
companies. In a testament to their meager means, Brad Dryer said he had
to get his mother to co-sign his lease on a new apartment because the
landlord didn't believe he had any income. ÿÿÿÿ"We just really have
decided we don't want to be acquired at this point," Jeff Dryer said.
ÿÿÿÿThe snubs have left bad feelings with some influential investors,
who wonder if S.I. can make it without bigger backing. ÿÿÿÿ"We had a
great deal of interest in Silicon Investor and were ready to make an
investment," said Charley Lax, managing director of Softbank Technology
Ventures, an investment arm of Japan's Softbank Corp. ÿÿÿÿLax explained
that Softbank's goal was to link Silicon Investor to its other popular
Web sites, including online technology news from Ziff Davis, a Softbank
subsidiary; the Yahoo! navigation guide, in which Softbank was an
investor; and INVESTools, a highly rated investment newsletter site that
Softbank backs. (Technology trade magazine publisher Ziff Davis supplies
content to MSNBC.) ÿÿÿÿBut Lax says that Silicon Investor "did not see
its way to deal with us clearly." ÿÿÿÿSince the deal collapsed more than
a year ago, Lax says he hasn't talked to the Dryers, considering them
"unfundable." ÿÿÿÿFurthermore, Lax and others said that Silicon Investor
could get hammered if it doesn't raise money and beef up marketing as
other big players move more aggressively into stock discussion boards.
ÿÿÿÿChief among the new rivals is the Motley Fool, a popular investment
discussion area on America Online, which last year beefed up its
formerly tepid Web site, and Yahoo!, operator of the Web's most popular
site, which three months ago launched discussion boards for more than
8,000 stocks. ÿÿÿÿ"I think they've created a great asset," Lax said. ÿÿÿ
ÿ"But without partners, I don't think these guys will be able to make it
happen," he added. ÿÿÿÿFor their part, Brad and Jeff Dryer said they
were satisfied with their go-it-alone choices, though they realize their
financial situation is tenuous. Monthly expenses now top $30,000 for
telecom lines, servers and McKinley's salary, and ad sales have been
minimal because they don't have a dedicated salesman. ÿÿÿÿIn March, the
Dryers turned around their finances by launching a successful
subscription plan apparently unique to the Web. Users pay a fee to
become "lifetime" members, which gives them the right to post messages.
(Surfers can read messages for free.) Initially, the fee was $45, now
its up to $125 and soon to be $200. ÿÿÿÿJeff Dryer said that with the
subscription fees, he and his brother have been able to cover their
expenses, pay off their debts - writing a check to their parents last
week - and are now getting ready to pay themselves their first salary.
ÿÿÿÿ"It's a pretty scary environment right now, and we're always just
feeling like we're holding on for our lives," he said. ÿÿÿÿ"That keeps
us motivated to keep improving the site." ÿÿSvejk(GL-15 applies:
digiserve.com ;-)ÿ |
