The Digital Debutants' Ball

This crew is missing more than a final mission statement. Like paychecks. Funding has been, to put it modestly, elusive. "Today's my first payday," says Northrop, who started as president two weeks ago. "Only I'm not getting a paycheck," he says with cavalier good cheer.

Throw's debut offers a chance to establish "brand presence" in a race where winners are determined not just by who has the most brilliant product but also by who can get through the most, and the best, doors. "We're a company composed of people nobody has ever heard of," Moody admits. "PC Forum is a chance to get in front of people who normally wouldn't give us the time of day."

What he expects those people to do remains indefinite. He is simultaneously open to acquisition and opposed to it. Like a real deb, he constantly weighs and reweighs the benefits of independence against those of commitment. "I don't want to get swallowed up and have somebody else driving this," says Moody. On the other hand, acquisition would eliminate the muss and fuss of selling and distributing his product. He could let somebody else worry about all that. As a business model, actually selling Internet software to customers seems unpredictable at best and tedious at worst. Often the quickest route to founder contentment is not through sales and profits but through acquisition and IPO.

"I know that as soon as we get back, the phone is going to start ringing," he says. "We're not ready for all the attention we're going to get." The software has only recently become stable. The product has yet to be given a name. Moody is exhausted from wearing the multiple hats of chief visionary, lead technologist, and sole fund-raiser.

PC Forum is a major ballpark, and the invitation to play in it has catapulted Moody and his team into the major leagues.

There is only one problem: Throw is almost too tired to pitch.

Sunday afternoon.

The Westin's khaki-colored bungalows quietly bake in the heat. A coyote has just been shooed off the tennis court. An elderly couple in matching striped shorts wobbles down the walkway toward the 2 PM "Stroke of the Day Clinic," which turns out to be a golf lesson. Deep in the sunless bowels of the conference center, the presenters are unpacking equipment, untangling wires, and rehearsing the pitches that could make or break their companies.

Mark Saul and Andrew Busey of Austin, Texas-based ichat Inc., are running through their PowerPoint slide show for an audience of . . . one. Maureen Blanc of their public relations firm, Blanc & Otus, sits in the back row of the darkened auditorium and calls out criticisms like a stage mother.

"Why are you guys talking so much about AOL? I thought you said it was going out of business?"

"Do we really want to take credit for making chat popular on the Internet?"

"I don't get that graphic. I don't see 'applications' and 'server.' I see two olives sticking out of an apple."

Saul, ichat's president, practices introducing founder Andrew Busey. "Ladies and gentlemen, the author of the best-selling Secrets of the MUD Wizards, Andrew Busey!"

Busey credits his company's existence to one serendipitous meeting. While wandering around Internet World, he met a local venture capitalist who introduced himself as "the king of the home runs." Busey pitched him on the spot about starting a chat software company. The VC's response was simple: "Who do I make the check out to?"

Busey also says the best decision he ever made was hiring Saul, ichat's president. "Most founders try to do it all and fail. Mark has specific objectives: attract some corporate partners, gain credibility, build OEM relationships."

Busey's fantasy: seeing his picture on the cover of a national business magazine. He vowed to a girlfriend who dumped him that he would achieve this feat by the time he was 30. At 25, he doesn't have long to gain his revenge. The pressure to succeed, he says, "is way harder than anyone says it is. I wake up screaming sometimes. It makes my cat unhappy."

Next door, Diffusion is setting up a mass of equipment worthy of a rock band: two video screens, seven laptops, ten pagers, one fax machine, two video mixers, and two network hubs. Has anyone worked up a budget for this demo? "We have chosen not to be constrained by reality," says President and CEO Jim Gagnard.

Diffusion's need to win first place may have something to do with the fact that one of the company's investors is Esther Dyson: Mom will be in the audience.

At the Tucson airport Doug Hickey, president of Global Center Inc., is strolling off a late flight from San Jose. He has a garment bag slung over his shoulder and a laptop tucked under his arm. He sees no need for rehearsal and will have a car waiting to take him to the airport right after his demo.