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MYYEARBOOK.COM
In 2005 Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother Dave, 17, were flipping through their high school yearbook and came up with the idea to develop a free interactive version online. The Cooks soon merged their social networking site with Zenhex.com, an ad-supported site where users post homemade quizzes, more than doubling traffic to their site. By 2006 MyYearbook had raised $4.1 million from the likes of U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. The business attracted advertisers such as Neutrogena, Disney and ABC, grew to 3 million members worldwide and raked in annual sales in the "seven figures," says Catherine.
Running on Empty: Michael Furdyk
n 1996, as the dot-com boom started to simmer, Michael Furdyk started a Web site, called MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents' home in suburban Toronto. Furdyk was 16 and a bona fide computer geek. His site was filled with tips and advice Furdyk gleaned in online chat rooms, where he also came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman in Australia. The twosome figured they could turn their passion for technology into a paying business. Hayman was so convinced that he moved to Toronto to get things started.
Just one problem: Their only source of income was Furdyk's paper route. Solution: barter. In exchange for Web site storage space, they ran their host's ads on MyDesktop.com. They negotiated cheap rent on their modest office by designing their landlord's Web site.
Soon MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in advertising revenue from blue-chip clients like Microsoft and IBM. Furdyk and Hayman used some of their excess cash to scoop up smaller technology sites for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. By 1999 the company was attracting 1 million unique visitors a month (serious numbers back then). Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold the company to Internet.com for "over $1 million," says Furdyk.
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