dot-com memory

Many thanks to Shane McEwan (yes, Rosie's Shane from Weta Digital) for his help with today's Waiting For Frodo. :-) Two years ago, I posted one of two Blatherings I made in December (cute picture of Parki and me in that entry). What I didn't say in my Blathering: I downshifted to working four days a week instead of five days on the advice of my family doctor. I was totally burned out. She had actually told me I needed to take an extended leave of absence from work, but I told her that I couldn't. The idea of leaving Inkspot completely in the hands of senior management at the company was unbearable. It turned out not to matter in the end, but I didn't know that at the time. Something else I didn't say in my Blathering: When I told my supervisor why I was downshifting and why, he never expressed a single word of commiseration. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I had at least expected a feigned word of sympathy or two, just for form. I still remember being floored, however, when his first words to me were, "Then I guess the first thing we should do is adjust your employment contract to reflect your reduced salary." He got out a calculator and figured out my new salary, said he'd send me the new contract once it had been approved by HR, and that was the end of our meeting. By then the dot-com craze was well on its way down to the basement. I sold Inkspot just as dot-com companies were starting to regret their wild spending sprees, and the company I started working for was no exception. Also, by the time I arrived in Philadelphia, a half dozen senior managers had been hired who had never heard of Inkspot. I clearly remember the first one-on-one meeting with my supervisor (different from the the one I mentioned earlier), who was the VP of Marketing. "I have to confess I don't know a lot about Inkspot or how it's supposed to help the company," he told me. "But I'm hoping you'll tell me." I think I must have written over a dozen reports about Inkspot during the six months I worked for the company at the request of various senior managers, my "wish list" for Inkspot, numbers and staff needed, etc. Two times, my supervisor had lost the report I had given him and wanted a new one. I went through several different supervisors, each of whom wanted a new copy. The other times, I was asked to make minor tweaks. In hindsight, I realize that it was just a makework project to keep me occupied and hopeful; I don't think my supervisor ever actually read any of the reports I gave him, or at least he never gave me feedback. I've summarized some of my frustrations during the whole experience in my Woodpile Philosophy, for those interested. :-) Had a very lazy and enjoyable day yesterday. Jeff and I bought some new games at a shop on Front Street: Cathedral and Lost Cities (reviews of both in a future Blathering). Went to see Die Another Day (my second time) with Jeff, Parki and Angela in the afternoon. Today's Blatherpic: Updated Waiting For Frodo.

dot-com adventures

I spent most of yesterday working on my novel, the first solid day I've been able to work on my fiction writing since before the audit. It felt VERY VERY GOOD to get back to that. I'm going to focus heavily on my novel for the next two months so I can send it off in September.

Also went for a run along the lake in the late afternoon. I had less energy than usual, and got tired having to dodge around so many people (the Martin Goodman Trail), so I ended up taking more walking breaks than usual. I also ran out of water for the first time during a run.

I finally feel as if my life is getting back under control and in a direction I'm completely happy with for the first time in several years. Jeff and I were talking about this last night over dinner at a restaurant in BCE place last night. Since early 1999, I've been feeling as if I've been a rollercoaster ride. Exciting and fun at times, but I always felt as if the car I was in could fly off the rail at anytime (which it did, in a way).

The rollercoaster ride began on January 11th, 1999, when I received a phone call from Tony Astarita, then the Director of Corporate Finance at Barnes & Noble Inc. I was working on Inkspot at home at that point, didn't have an office yet. Things were looking pretty good for Inkspot; I didn't have trouble finding advertisers, even made enough to be able to hire some telecommuting help, was gradually expanding.

Astarita said that B&N was interested "in securing a majority interest share in Inkspot". He and someone else from B&N wanted to talk to me, and could they come fly to Toronto to meet in person? I was already in shock by that point, of course. I also remembering looking around my tiny and very cluttered home office, trying to picture two bigwigs in suits from B&N trying to cram themselves in the small space. Nope, definitely wouldn't do.

Jeff and I were supposed to fly to New York the following week to visit with some friends, so I suggested that we could meet in New York. Astarita agreed.

As soon as I got off the phone with B&N, of course, I called Jeff right away. As you can imagine, I wasn't very coherent. :-)

Two days later, I got a phone call from Jack Heffron, head of the Writer's Digest Book team at F&W Publications. They wanted me to write a book for them about online markets for writers. I was floored. Stunned. In shock. I also clearly remember that for a few split seconds, I was utterly panicked at the idea of trying to cope with doing a book during what was probably going to be an incredibly hectic and stressful time in life because of the B&N stuff in addition to Inkspot stuff, but I also knew that there was absolutely no way I could turn down a book offer. After hanging up the phone with Writer's Digest, I confess that I jumped up and down like a little kid. I don't remember if I yelled. I probably did.

I mean geez, I was GOING TO HAVE A BOOK PUBLISHED! This was what I had been dreaming about all my life. I never dreamed I'd get a nonfiction book published before a fiction title. So what if things were going to be a little hectic? I'd make time somehow.

After I finished jumping up and down, I called Jeff right away. I think I was even less coherent than my B&N news phone call.

On January 20th, Jeff and I flew to New York. We stayed with a friend of ours who is a lawyer at Goldman-Sachs; she gave me some advice for my meeting with B&N, helped calm my jitters somewhat. I was still terrified, of course.

We were taken on a tour of the BarnesandNoble.com offices. This was separate from the regular B&N head office, and was devoted to their online efforts. The office had a warehouse feel, with high ceilings and lots of space. Lots of cubicles.

We met with Astarita, the finance guy I had talked with on the phone, as well as Ken Brooks, then VP of B&N's E-Publishing division. They were both easygoing, super-friendly. Ken showed Jeff and me some of the cool tech toys he was checking out, including the new Rocketbook; I'd only seen photos of the e-book reader before, had never held one.

Hey, this is kind of fun, I thought. These guys don't seem like stuffy corporate types at all.

After our brief tour of the B&N.com, Jeff and I were taken to the Hercules room, where they had hooked up a projector so that we could browse the Web and see the results on a big screen. We sat at a long table with lots of chairs that was obviously built to accommodate very big and important B&N.com meetings with lots of people. We were told that the chairs were new and cost a lot of money. I remember almost fainting in shock when I heard the price of one chair; the amount would support Inkspot for several months.

They asked me to walk them through Inkspot, so I did. I was super-nervous at first, but then was fine. Inkspot was my baby, after all. Kind of funny, really...I'm a relatively shy person and normally despise public speaking of any kind, but when it came to Inkspot, the excitement I felt about the site and its community made me forget about everything else. I loved working on Inkspot, talking about Inkspot. So I took the B&N guys on a short tour of my site; they mostly listened, didn't ask many questions.

After, they asked me what my "vision" was for Inkspot. It was the first time the term had come up; I'd be hearing it many, many more times over the next few years. I told them some of my plans for Inkspot, but by this time I had grown somewhat cautious about specifics; I knew that B&N could afford to implement any of my ideas in their own site much more easily than I could if they wanted to.

At the end of the meeting, they said they wanted me to prepare a business plan that would "grow" Inkspot as quickly as possible. They gave very little specific information about their own vision for Inkspot or how it would help or fit into B&N.com, though they did mention the possibility of a new entity and that I could be a shareholder in this new entity. They said that would need to see the business plan before making a decision about an Inkspot/B&N deal.

Sure, I said, not knowing what else to say. I could do that.

We had brunch with Steve Riggio (then the Vice Chairman of B&N, now the CEO) at a nearby fancy hotel. Astarita, Brooks, Jeff and I waited for about half an hour before Riggio showed up; apparently he was coming from another meeting. When he arrived, the atmosphere at our table immediately changed. It felt almost as if Astarita and Brooks stepped back, even though they never moved in their chairs. I can see part of the reason Riggio attracts so much media attention. He's vibrant, full of energy, intense, wiry; he's one of those people whose very presence makes everyone beside him seem to pale in comparison. His passion and enthusiasm make him a natural leader-type.

After very minimal smalltalk, he launched right into Inkspot discussion. He wanted to know my vision for Inkspot. He wanted to know how Inkspot got started and more about my background. When I told him about the Writer's Digest book, he said that they could feature my book in the front display case of every Barnes and Noble store. Like Brooks and Astarita, he told me that I should put together some numbers for the future Inkspot.

Riggio left brunch early because he had another meeting to attend. He never touched his food. As soon as Riggio started talking with me, I felt as if a giant spotlight was fixed on me, that everyone in the room, not just our table, was listening. I don't think I ate much during that brunch, either, but more from sheer terror than because of time constraints. I'm sure I sounded like a blathering idiot during that conversation, though Jeff reassured me I did fine. :-)

When I got home, I began working on the business plan right away. Unfortunately I had never written a business plan before. I bought some books on business plans (including "Business Plans For Dummies" :-) ) and pored over them. I also had zero experience in planning large-scale business ventures. B&N didn't want to tell me how much money they were willing to invest in Inkspot, so I didn't even know what my financial parameters were. They also didn't tell me what they hoped to get out of Inkspot. Obviously they wanted to make money, but how?

I spent the next several months researching web development companies, office space, database software and programmers, and other services. One web development company gave me a quote of nearly $500,000. I began to realize that I was way out of my depth; I wasn't used to working with these kind of numbers. B&N would e-mail or call every week or so to see how the business plan was coming. I told them it was tough; could they please give me more info about what they wanted from Inkspot? Direct profit from advertisers or services? How much? More users? How many more? "Whatever you think is necessary," Brooks told me.

Meanwhile, I was also working on my book for Writer's Digest. They basically wanted a big version of an Inklings issue. I would organize and write the framework but also commission and edit articles about online markets for writers, as well as researching online markets. As you can imagine, I was pretty stressed out during those first few months of 1999.

I had no idea how much more stressful and hectic things were going to get.

More in a future Blathering.

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Today's Blatherpic:

Sunrise at the cottage.

bureaucracy

My CCRA audit adventures continue. Apparently the CCRA wants some more information from me; my tax lawyer is going to call me this afternoon with details.

Meanwhile, I also got a call from another area of the government saying that I owe a tax return for the empty shell of a corporate account that used to be Inkspot. I sought legal help about this earlier in the year, and was told that since the company was completely inactive, I could just let it expire without penalty, that closing it would be way more hassle and cost than it was was worth. Well, turns out that this advice wasn't quite accurate, and though the woman on the phone was soft-spoken and polite, she also made it pretty clear that if I didn't file returns and officially close the account, that Bad Things would happen.

Remember what I said about asking friends to stomp on my head with cleat boots if I ever mentioned selling a company again? I hereby give them permission to pin my eyelids open Clockwork Orange style and force me to watch back-to-back reruns of Temptation Island and Big Brother for an entire week as well.

What bugs me most about this whole experience is that all along, I've just tried to do the right thing in the right way. I've put a lot of time and money into hiring experts to interpret legal docs and help me do the right thing. Yet somehow, things end up biting me in the backside anyway.

Some days I feel like asking Jeff if he'd mind if we moved into the northern wilds and carved widgets for a living. I'd grow tomatoes. We'd read by candlelight. It would be romantic and adventurous and fulfilling and...

Ah, who am I kidding. I could never live anywhere without high speed Internet access. :-)

Today's Blatherpic:

A drawing of Sara, by Annie.

$1600 plane tickets

Yay, I've finished moving over all my old archives, which means that everything is searchable and in Movable Type format. I added the search function on the lefthand navigation sidebar more for my own use rather than other people's, though you're all free to use it as well. :-) I love having all my archives in one place. Sometimes it's fun (and often enlightening) for me to see what I was doing a year ago.

As I moved over archived entries, I sometimes did a quick scan of the contents out of curiosity to see what was going on. Very weird to be reading over the entries from early 1999, when I got "major life event" phonecalls from both Writer's Digest and Barnes and Noble in the same week...but didn't want to say anything about it in public yet.

Ditto for my visit to New York shortly after, when I saw the offices of BarnesandNoble.com and had a breakfast meeting with Steve Riggio, who was recently promoted to CEO of Barnes and Noble. Riggio wore brown corduroy pants, I remember. He arrived late, left early. I remember being in a relative state of terror during the entire meeting, though Jeff told me later that I didn't show it (maybe he was just trying to reassure me :-)). I didn't eat anything, of course.

My brief mention of a business meeting in Seattle in May the following year referred to one I attended at the offices of Amazon.com. I remember being horrified by the price of my first class plane ticket (which someone else booked and paid for), about US$1600. I saw some of the legendary door-desks, which was pretty cool. I also remember the beginning of the meeting, where everyone (as if at a signal) took out their business cards and set them in a neat pile on the table in front of them. I was the only one with no business cards, having opted not to bring my cheapo perforated-edge homemade cards (plus I didn't have a lot of warning about the Seattle trip). There were a lot of things like the ritualistic displaying of business cards at the beginning of the meeting, unspoken rules of the corporate world with which I was completely unfamiliar. The whole Seattle visit was somewhat of a blur to me, mainly because a favourite aunt had died on the day I left; I found out while waiting in the airport after checking in :-(.

More on my dot-com adventures at a future date. My Dad just arrived, so I'd better finish this up...








News/Updates

Jeff and I saw L.A. Confidential last night and both loved it (with some reservations about the ending).

Fox is going to air the new 2 1/2 minute trailer for Episode II: Attack of the Clones on March 10th between 8:30-10 pm EST. Source: USA Today. Hopefully it will be better than the last trailer, and show more of Ewan McGregor.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Sara and Annie playing Barbies with their cousins Taavo and Markus. It was pretty funny contrasting how the boys' Barbie play differs from Sara's and Annie's. More on this in an upcoming Blathering (I started writing about it here but it got way too long :-)).
	Sara practising blowing bubbles in front of the mirror.
	More of Sara practising blowing bubbles in front of the mirror.
	Success!