Back home in Seattle, the staff of his threadbare software startup has gone without pay or with only minimal pay for almost a year. The lack of income hasn't stopped Moody, president of Throw Inc., from maxing out his charge cards to produce $12,000 in registration fees and travel expenses to get him and two senior partners into a small, overly air- conditioned conference room at a plush resort in Tucson, Arizona.
Moody is sure that a year of cranking out code, avoiding the landlord's phone calls, and staring into empty refrigerators is about to pay off. At the end of his demo, any 1 of the 50 or so people in this room could step forward and offer him the door prize he desperately desires: a strategic partnership, a distribution deal -- or maybe just a big, fat check. Or they could walk out of the room, steal his product idea, trash his business model. Worst-case scenario: they find his software unworthy -- boring -- and condemn him to death-by-irrelevance.
This is PC Forum, one of the most exclusive technology conferences in the world. Each year, this conclave in the Arizona desert attracts the world's highest density per square foot of high-tech CEOs, venture capitalists, and industry analysts. The $3,300 admission fee tends to keep the riffraff out. This is no sweaty convention center with plastic tote bags and lines at the back of the hall for hot dogs and soft pretzels. This is the sprawling Westin La Paloma resort, where meals are served poolside and chefs carve filet en croute.
And the business opportunities are a la carte. Need an online distribution channel for your hot new content? The man breakfasting on the patio is America Online's Steve Case. Looking for a cash infusion? Sidle over to the buffet line and cut in behind Steven Rattner from Lazard Freres. Desperate for a boost from the press? The woman breast-feeding by the pool is Wired President Jane Metcalfe, with her new baby, Orson.
PC Forum is a three-day gathering of high-tech high rollers: part power-breakfast, part secular revival, part slumber party. Everyone is here to get a little sun, give a little attitude, and catch a speech or two. And presiding over it all is the industry's foremost sibyl, Esther Dyson, whose EDventure Holdings Inc. sponsors the event.
Everyone here is an FOE, a friend of Esther. But at this party the real guest of honor is none of these lofty people. The real guest of honor -- rarely revealed but constantly in evidence -- is what everyone has come here to celebrate, or locate, or furnish: money.
"It's the only conference I've ever been to where people are only physically present," says Skip Walter, former head of engineering at Aldus Corp., now president of his own startup, Personal Health Connection Inc. "One year, I was having lunch with nine people at one of those big circular tables," says Walter. "Six of them were on cell-phones checking their stock prices."
And then there is the beauty pageant that gives the event its own peculiar frisson. Each year, a dozen or so lucky software start- ups are invited to present their fledgling products. For Scott Moody and the 12 other nervous CEOs, the "Forum" in "PC Forum" summons up images of Christians in the lions' den.
It is 2 PM on the first afternoon of the forum, and a standing-room-only crowd has gathered in a small breakout room to see Scott Moody's demo.
Moody launches his software. And his life immediately begins to pass in front of his eyes. His software can't find the server. The connection must be down. He frantically rechecks every potentially errant software configuration. A runner is dispatched to find somebody from the network management company to help.
In the front row, a senior executive from Microsoft drums her pen on a notebook and recrosses her legs for the 10th time. Toward the back of the room, a managing director from Morgan Stanley loudly leafs through this morning's Wall Street Journal.
Moody glances at the clock on the wall. He has until 3 PM to do his demo. But he may not have that long to make the sale. Moody may be undergoing the last stage in the life cycle of a startup in today's economy -- a cycle that, like life itself, can be experienced only once. For what differentiates startups from traditional businesses is not just that the cycle is so short. It's the stomach-tightening sense that the whole life-changing, soul-testing experience is riding on one throw of the dice.
"It's like a launch to Mars," says Peter Friedland, president and CEO of Intraspect Software Inc., another of this year's digital debutants. "If you miss your window, you have to wait until the planet comes around again."
In fact, Friedland is overly optimistic. In today's high-tech economy, opportunity does not follow anything nearly as predictable as an orbit. A startup may have only one chance to "ship and flip" -- to get a product out the door and cash streaming in before this fickle industry loses interest and starts chasing somebody younger and cuter. "This industry is like a big, hungry dog eatin' cookies," says Stewart Padveen, chairman and CEO of HotOffice Technologies Inc., another deb. "It's only interested in the next cookie."
Moody wipes his sweaty palms on his blue jeans. The natives are getting restless. After a year of struggle -- a year of empty bank accounts and all-night work sessions -- the opportunity of a lifetime is about to go down the toilet.
He has already learned the first lesson of being a debutant: nubility has a very short shelf life.
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