Young Entrepreneurs Raise $20 Million for Web Venture

By Sara Faiwell (past articles)

06/06/2005

Become a Fan of Young Money

Follow Young Money on Twitter

Email This Article

Print This Article

Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring have one piece of advice for college entrepreneurs: just go out and make it happen.

That's what the two young Stanford University graduates did when they started Plaxo, an Internet company that eliminates the hassles of updating e-mail address books. After a quick download from their website, the free service integrates with Microsoft Outlook and lets people send a personalized e-mail to friends, family and colleagues asking them to correct and update their contact information.

"We wanted to start something that helped when your address book is out of date and all the contact info has changed," said Masonis, who earned a bachelor's degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford.

With Plaxo, users can make updates by simply replying to the e-mail message and correcting the contact information in the body of the message. Once the e-mail is returned, the contact information is automatically updated on your computer for future use.

Although the two say that being young businessmen has it perks, it's definitely hard to balance college life and professional tasks at the same time.

Ring, 25, was still finishing his masters degree in computer science when Plaxo was taking off. The two spent nine months building their product and trying to raise money. The Internet company always took precedence over school, Ring said, forcing him to skip half of his classes.

"It's really hard to focus on more than one thing," Ring said. "Work was just a lot more exciting."

Since it's inception in November 2002, about 2.8 million people have subscribed to the Plaxo network and the company says it is gaining about 10,000 to 12,000 members a day. The two originally started the business with Sean Parker, who was a co-founder of Napster, the ground breaking music file-sharing website.

It's based in Mountain View, Calif., and is backed by some of the most reputable investment firms and business strategists in the industry including Sequoia Capital, Globespan, Cisco Systems, Yahoo!, Netscape, and Amazon. The company has raised more than $20 million so far.

In May, Plaxo offered a premium service where "VIP" customers can pay about $20 a year for special services like group calendaring, expanded note-taking capabilities and a commercial license to use Plaxo. The new service is the first attempt to charge people for the use of Plaxo.

But before Plaxo took off, the two started an unsuccessful Internet company in 19999 called netElement, which served as a plug-in to Internet Explorer that allowed users to meet and chat with each other on any Web page. However, both say that the experience they got helped them to establish their current company successfully.

Masonis, 24, said he advises college students to think outside the box and go for any ideas they might have. Once you leave the safety net of school, he said it is hard to deal with financial and job-related pressures.

"You have access to people when you're at school," said Ring. "People are actually willing to talk to students."

For more information, go to Plaxo.com