Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur: Why I Can't Stop Starting Over

CHAPTER 9

Easy Dot Come

The Making of an Internet Pioneer

How I founded and sold a company for $100 million in less than three years.

I learned a lot during the two years I spent playing professional poker, but I was itching to do something new. I wanted to jump back into the start-up world, and I knew exactly what company I wanted to start. During my nine years in Vermont, I'd become obsessed with what I call movie matchmaking, the art and science of delivering valuable movie information to customers. Thanks to Scott Beck at Blockbuster, I knew my future would be digital, so it felt like a natural transition for me to migrate from the world of brick-and-mortar businesses to cyberspace.

In the mid-1990s, there was only one place to be if you ...