The theme of The Montel Williams Show last March was "Money Is Making My World Go Around." Four young entrepreneurs sat in a row under hot lights to tell the stories of how they made a pile of money. Making up the panel were "Kenny" from Chicago, founder of Little Miss Muffin muffin company; "Anita," who designed cheap, trendy handbags under the moniker Trash Bags; and Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot, both 25, who had built a Web site called Theglobe.com, which they described as an "online community."
Krizelman and Paternot seemed to be from a different world than the others. For one thing, they were so, so much richer - at least on paper. Kenny's muffins pulls in $4 million a year; Anita's handbags, $1 million.
Krizelman and Paternot didn't discuss revenues, just net worth: The company was valued at close to $1 billion on Nasdaq, with each founder worth around $30 million. And while the muffins made their way on a tray around the audience and the handbags sat on a table onstage, Krizelman and Paternot had nothing tangible to show the audience, which only added to the dreamlike quality of their success.
Back at the office, partners Paternot and Krizelman face each other behind their tidy desks, looking rather relaxed, talking about the Montel experience. "We're used to going to CNN, where it's crisp and clean," says Paternot.
"CEOs, suits, you're on, you're off," adds Krizelman.
"On Montel, Todd and I were like, 'Oh my God, we're in a different universe,'" says Paternot.
The Montel Williams Show seems a strange place to peddle a Web site; Net CEOs aren't frequent guests on the talk-show circuit. But its audience has just the type of person Theglobe.com thinks it needs to attract - someone who has yet to go online and fall prey to a competing online community.
Theglobe.com needs members, wherever it can get them - and quick. The site has not kept up with the Internet's growth. According to Media Metrix, Theglobe.com reached only 3.8 percent of the Net's audience in January 1999 and 3.7 percent in March. Its acquisition of Attitude Network, parent company of game portal Happy Puppy, accounts for a boost in traffic to 5.2 percent in April. The most instantly successful IPO in history, the company's stock has tanked since its debut. While its biggest competitors have all been snatched up by industry heavyweights (Xoom.com by NBC, GeoCities by Yahoo (YHOO), Tripod by Lycos (LCOS)), Theglobe.com is still going it alone.
So Theglobe.com's marketers have come up with a strategy that's unusual for the Web: media appearances, as many as possible, everywhere - and not just on the CNN circuit. This approach requires coming up with a story that's fun and sexy enough to find a home on TV shows, in magazines, in newspapers.
At 25 years old, Todd Krizelman and Steph Paternot, co-CEOs, embody the popular myth of kids who got rich messing around with the Internet in a garage. The bonus is that unlike other Net geeks, they have good skin, well-cut hair and a fashionably downtown style. Col. Tom Parker, marketer of Elvis, said that he knew he'd hit the jackpot when he found a white boy who could sing black; Theglobe.com has white geeks who can wear black.
Even though there are rumbles that most of the company's day-to-day dealmaking is done by more seasoned execs (over 60 percent of the company is owned by former Alamo Rent-A-Car chairman Michael Egan and his investment company Dancing Bear), the front men, the titular bosses or, at least, the spokespeople of Theglobe.com are Krizelman and Paternot, two young Internet millionaires.
The end result is name recognition, which is what Theglobe.com needs, especially because it's not clear exactly what the public should recognize. The brand may be strong, but the product is awfully confusing.
Building a community site is not easy. Most sites have been based on vaguely humanitarian concerns, which
