Dots Dashed

By: Lucy McCauley and Christine CanabouWed Dec 19, 2007 at 12:24 AM

Unit of One

Another big lesson that most dotcoms have learned the hard way: Pay attention to your financial systems from the beginning. At Amazon, I saw firsthand what happens when you don't. Success can be your biggest enemy. When you get lots of traffic, your ability to build the financial-reporting system beneath that just gets harder. If you don't deal with the financials in your first 6 months, you'll be up against a wall in month 12. Amazon had to add a financial system on the run. The moral? Figure out your system from day one. Because in Internet time, a day is a week, and a week is a month. In no time, you might be a public company.

Mark Breier (mark@breiers.com), former VP of marketing at Amazon.com and former CEO of Beyond.com, spent his early career as a marketing executive in the brick-and-mortar worlds of Dreyer's/Edy's Ice Cream and Kraft Foods. His book, The 10-Second Internet Manager, was published in 2000 by Crown Business.

Craig Moffett

President
Sothebys.com
New York, New York

When you translate a bricks and mortar to the Web, consumer expectations are a lot higher -- especially if you're a 257-year-old brand. The spotlight is on you the second you put up your site. You don't have the luxury of working out kinks. That goes double if you're doing auctions. The day we launched, we had to create an immediate conflagration of supply and demand, an active market between buyers and sellers. The sand started running out of the hourglass on each auction the moment we launched.

That's why it's been critical for us to get the fundamentals right from the beginning. Having a clear vision of where you're going and making sure that everyone understands that vision can insulate you from the emotional roller coaster that defines daily life at an Internet company. You have to measure yourself constantly against a longer-term goal and not get wrapped up in any kind of day-to-day perturbations.

Many dotcoms that lost their stamina last spring had overpromised to begin with. There wasn't a lot of "there" there. They relied on hyperbole, and they got burned by it. That's an important lesson: We should quietly stick to our knitting. Get the basics right. And build your business one customer at a time in the marketplace -- rather than eyeing the stock exchange.

Craig Moffett, a former vice president and a partner at the Boston Consulting Group, once worked as a contemporary art dealer in Philadelphia. Sothebys.com is an auction site with more than $50 million in sales that launched in January 2000.

Geoffrey Lewis

Editor in chief
cnbc.com
Fort Lee, New Jersey

When I left Business Week for TheStreet.com, I knew I was jumping from the biggest, safest, most powerful ship on the high seas of financial journalism. I loved my job, but I also wanted to stretch professionally. I didn't want to turn around in 10 years and say, "I missed my chance." I needed a challenge.

That's exactly what I got. The experience of building and managing a newsroom in cyberspace was fantastic. What I didn't anticipate was just how vulnerable even well-funded startups are. When there's a storm at sea, the SS Business Week may rock a bit -- but the little boats can sink. At Business Week, I never had to worry about the company itself. On the Net, there's no guarantee that it's going to work out. It's hard to love what you're doing when you're constantly keeping an eye on the life rafts.

Today at cnbc.com -- part of the strongest brand in markets news -- I have a bit more stability. And that's important, because I have a family. They've been incredibly supportive. But they also like to eat every day.

Now I can focus on the reason why I was attracted to the Internet to begin with: the opportunity it presents. Demographics are destiny. As a baby boomer, I was just one of many in my age-and-experience bracket competing for those few top jobs at places like Business Week. On the Net, I'm working as editor in chief, managing at a higher level than I ever have before and helping craft the strategy to make the site succeed editorially and financially.

Although my year on the Net has been more of a learning experience than I bargained for, I wouldn't trade what I've come to understand -- both professionally and about myself.

Geoff Lewis (geoffrey.lewis@nbc.com) was managing editor of TheStreet.com, a Web-based provider of financial news and commentary, before he joined cnbc.com last September. He previously spent 15 years at Business Week, where he was a senior editor.