subject: sem-089 alum's start-up partner drops-out of harvard ... good morning e-club members & seminars 089 & 095 students and alum- (ok, ok, it's certainly not that rare an occurrence; however ...) just to make sure one thing's clear, i've personally not ever suggested, or encouraged, any mit or cross-registered harvard student member of the mit e-club or participant in our seminars to drop out of the institute or university to do their own, or participate in another's, start-up ... even our own exceptional, and independently minded, mr. j.w.s. that said, too bad hyatt's article below doesn't mention harvard economics major mr. powell's telling us he got the idea for fuxito worldwide when taking our mit start-up seminar-089 in fall term '98, as an x-registered student here ... properly crafted, a short story on that experience would be a great new seminar student recruitment piece. finally, and PERHAPS at some risk to any of my own (potential-future-profits) interests in fuxito worldwide, i sincerely hope mr. powell's partner does return to harvard and complete his studies, if not sooner, ultimately. later, - r -------- From: gemmanuel@alum.mit.edu Sender: "George Emmanuel" To: "Barry Unger (E-mail)" , "Richard D Shyduroff (E-mail)" Subject: Dropping out, logging on (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/195/business/Dropp Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:53:11 -0400 BG article referencing richie powell and his partner dan hoffer, ---- THE LEARNING CURVE Dropping out, logging on Some talented students forgo diploma for shot in Silicon Valley By Josh Hyatt, 07/14/99 Daniel Hoffer was having dinner with his parents, trying to figure out whether to tell them about the dramatic swerve he felt his future taking. Instinctively, the 21-year-old opted for a standard parental-management ploy: He stalled, big time. `I waited a while,' he admits. Over time, he reasoned, they'd see the wisdom in what he was doing, and maybe not feel quite so uneasy when he formally told them that he'd decided to leave college for the time being. He waited about three months to drop the news, and the strategy worked - as well as it could have, anyway. `I'm someone for whom the idea of moving ahead in this uncertain world without a college education is unsettling,' says his mother, Anita, a Ph.D. who serves as a director of corporate development at Genzyme Corp. Of course, kids of every generation have willfully ignored such admonitions. Thirty years ago, Hoffer might have been dropping out to drop acid in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Or, decades before that, he might have run off to enlist. But these days kids like Brookline-bred Hoffer head out to Silicon Valley to stake their claims as Internet start-up prospectors. Hoffer's only been there for close to four weeks, but, he says, `it feels like we have been here for months. So much happens so quickly.' It had better; Hoffer and his partner aim to build an Internet business worth $100 million by year's end. At that point, he notes, a public offering is `certainly a possibility.' Or maybe, he muses, `we'll get an offer for $15 million in four months.' For now, there's little time to dwell on anything but getting the venture kick-started. Of the company's nine members, more than half actually live in the office, sleeping on futons in the back. Originally, they agreed to schedule about seven hours of sleep a night. `Now it's down to four,' says Hoffer, who works barefoot and occasionally whizzes through the office on a skateboard. Every so often, the crew transforms the parking lot into a soccer field. In their case, that could be considered market research. After all, the start-up of which Hoffer is co-founder and chief technology officer is Fuxito Worldwide, an on-line soccer site that offers recruiting services for soccer coaches and players, with other features for fans. `When I first heard the idea, I was sold within five minutes,' Hoffer recalls of his meeting with Richard Powell, a fellow classmate at Harvard. Powell, formerly an Olympic-level player on the Jamaican youth national soccer team, knew well the inefficiencies inherent in the existing recruiting system. He sought computer expertise from Hoffer, who in his sophomore year had launched his own dorm-based technology consulting firm. Hoffer assembled a team, and put up a prototype in 'a ridiculously fast' three weeks. To date, they've raised $170,000 through individual `angel' investors. Heading out to Silicon Valley - `a great opportunity for us to play with the big boys,' notes Powell, 20, who serves as chief executive - they subleased space from an Internet company whose founder had started his business in Hoffer's dorm. It plans to go public next year. Like every Internet start-up, Fuxito's current concern is `acquiring a loyal community of users,' as Hoffer puts it - in other words, not generating revenue. He and Powell hope to raise as much as $8 million from venture capitalists, earmarking $1 million for computers they'll give away to soccer clubs around the world, promoting use of the site. `It's a little intimidating, but we take the attitude that we're at least as qualified as anybody else out here,' says Hoffer, who recalls that one venture capitalist they pitched recommended they finish school. That's a sentiment his parents still share, though his mother sounds as if she's growing used to having lost a son to the Internet frenzy - temporarily, that is. `The window will close,' she says. Meanwhile, both of Hoffer's parents will be visiting him this weekend. `I guess I can see how what they're doing would be fun if I were 20,' Anita Hoffer says, adding, `We have a safety net of plans in case Daniel is too busy to see us.' ---- Josh Hyatt is a senior editor at Inc. magazine. His e-mail address is: ... This story ran on page E4 of the Boston Globe on 07/14/99. (c) Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. -------- eof; .