The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business

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Dealtree

Getting laid off might have been the best thing that ever happened to Paul Fletcher and Garry Heath. Like so many other hopeful businesspeople, the two jumped on the dot-com bandwagon in the late 1990s, taking jobs with Internet retailer Buy.com. Heath left an office products company to manage Buy.com’s supply chain. Fletcher joined the e-tailer from computer hardware distributor Merisel, becoming general manager of the company’s Canada division and later, as the company’s fortunes were spiraling downward, head of its software store.

In a story that’s now legendary, but by no means unique in the dot-com era, Buy.com’s business started strong but quickly fizzled. After its well-hyped February 2000 initial public offering, Buy.com’s stock soared to $37.50 a share. But within 18 months, the company was delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange because its per-share price had dipped below $1. The steep decline in its stock price was only one of many problems for Buy.com, which spent more money than it made. During the first half of 2001, before its founder took the company private again, Buy.com lost nearly $51 million. Hundreds of employees were terminated, including Fletcher and Heath, who were laid off in February 2001.

As tough times often do, the layoff helped Fletcher and Heath cement a friendship that had started at work and strengthened at church, where they were in the same Bible study group.

Two months after getting their pink slips, the two men started Dealtree, ...