Another Internet Millionaire Story

I mentioned AdBrite in a previous post about textlink advertising. The CEO of the company, Philip Kaplan, first made his riches from a website called FuckedCompany.com (FC), which was a site were disgruntled dot.com employees came together to have a whinge about their bosses. The site really boomed during the Internet bubble bust and made Kaplan a millionaire (perhaps one of the only dot.coms to benefit from the crash). Since then he has gone on to create AdBrite and now works towards turning the business into another Internet success story.

FC was a subscription site that made money through advertising, membership subscriptions and merchandise sales.

The Seattle Times: In the late 1990s, legions of workers seeking quick riches left good jobs to join Internet companies with no business plans, and investors were happy to foot the bill as Nasdaq soared. But when it all collapsed, workers — instead of blaming themselves — turned their bosses into villains.

Kaplan’s site became their megaphone. Known to his followers by his online handle, Pud, Kaplan became a champion for those facing layoffs, bitter about corporate hypocrisy or just fascinated by the spectacle of companies melting down every day.

As many as 500 e-mails a day poured in from company insiders dishing about obscene executive salaries, pending layoffs and companies shutting down. The site got as many as 4 million Web surfers a month.

But for the executives who were trying to keep their struggling companies going, FC was a nightmare. Some blocked access to it at the workplace.

FC soon became so popular that Kaplan realized he could make money from it. He sold $75 monthly subscriptions and created a quick and easy system for advertisers to place their text- and banner-ads on his site.

At the peak, Kaplan says, he was pulling in more than $90,000 a month from subscriptions, $10,000 from advertising and $2,000 from T-shirts, mouse pads and other merchandise.

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