As the calendar marched toward Y2K and worries about the impact of technology gone wild on the world ran rampant, I didn’t hesitate for a
moment in deciding to leave behind my cushy position as editor of a print magazine to tackle the challenge of starting what at time was called an e-magazine to front a commerce website.
My Thanksgiving turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie had barely time to settle in my stomach before I packed up my wife’s Honda Accord and drove off from Boulder, Colorado to Austin, Texas to tackle the challenges of the brave new world known as the World Wide Web.
Mainstream media focused on the possible crash of society as we knew it when the calendar would roll over to 2000 on January 1. For those of you too young to have been there, the first major hurdle was reprogramming your computer that had a calendar that did not have dates beyond December 31, 1999, because the average layman had no idea what the repercussions might be.
Fears that your local power company or phone company or police force or fire department wasn’t prepared conjured up images of widespread blackouts and utter chaos.
Undaunted, I drove to Austin with my sights set far beyond New Year’s Day, envisioning ways to enhance and improve the cycling experiences I created in print and send them to another level online.
From where I sat I could see a Grand Canyon divide between those who embraced the potential of the future and those who feared it.
Many of my colleagues in print considered me crazy mad to leave the comforts of the established brick and mortar world for the galaxy of the ether.
When I walked into work that Monday morning, I found myself surrounded by likewise adventurous spirits and my expectations sky rocketed to the moon and beyond.
Small companies like this were taking chances and pushing the boundaries. Many were going public with IPOs and creating wealthy folks left and right.
When I had lunch with one of the co-founders and the primary investor, he told me how he loved strolling through the office listening to these young hired guns talk about what they will do when we strike it rich.
Although New Years came and went without a global meltdown, we had our challenges in blazing our trail. But we endured and eventually hit our stride.
Unfortunately, as spring turned to summer, far too many of the brilliant futures online that had been bet on hadn’t delivered. Less and less money was tossed around to invest into these cutting edge concepts.
As such, we missed the IPO boat as the dotcom bubble burst.
But a strange thing happened. We continued cranking away with a skeleton crew and by the time trick or treaters scoured the neighborhoods, we projected to break even by year’s end!
Break even on the World Wide Web where nobody — and I mean NOBODY — even sniffed that kind of return.
But our investor jumped into this adventure for the big payday, and seeing that wasn’t on the horizon, he shut us down on the day Dubya was elected President — 24 years ago today.
I’ll admit early on the dreams of grandeur sent my morale soaring. By summer, when the dotcom bubble began to lose air, the investor came to me and said point blank: Without you we have nothing to offer. If you’re in this for the long haul I’ll keep going. If not I’ll close the doors today.
I never hesitated. I never do. When I’m in, I’m IN! That’s what I told him. And that meant to the end. Unfortunately his idea of the end and mine differed significantly.
Just before the announcement to close, I pointed out we were just a couple months from turning a modest profit. He responded: I’m not in this to run a small business.
That’s the world we live in. Go big or go home. I’ve never really fit into that world. That’s why I spent my years covering bike racing in the US and never yearned to head to Europe. If I wanted to cover egomaniacs, I would have stuck with the NFL or NBA or MLB.
I think of that a lot when I look at the modest batch of loyal subscribers here at TCI, and wonder if you have any idea how much you mean to us.
I’ve always believed the true beauty and power of the Internet lies with small Mom & Pop (i.e., Padraig & Robot) websites, not with the mega-sites. If everyone believed in go big or go home, places like this would not exist.
Life of a writer has changed dramatically in the past 24 years, and compensation is a small fraction of what it once was. That’s just reality.
I hit the climax of my career many years ago, and I’m slowly riding to the horizon so thankful that there’s a place where I can do what I was born to do: write.
I’m not a flash and dash guy. I’m a tortoise, always in for the long haul. And 99 columns sure seems like a long haul these days, which is the reason I found myself looking back.
I always look back before I charge onward.
Time to ride
