Pioneering Data On-Demand: Salary.com CEO and Serial Entrepreneur Kent Plunkett (Part 3)

SM: It was easy to raise money in 1999. It was not easy to raise money in 2001. What was your experience raising angel money during that time window? KP: I have never had a problem raising angel money. It was extremely easy in 1999. We did talk to some venture capitalists, but they did

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Pioneering Data On-Demand: Salary.com CEO and Serial Entrepreneur Kent Plunkett (Part 2)

SM: What was the genesis of Salary.com? KP: Right before I started Salary.com I was building software for What Color Is Your Parachute?, which is also in the career management space. There we ended our process with a recommendation as to what would be a good career fit for an individual. The goal was to

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Pioneering Data On-Demand: Salary.com CEO and Serial Entrepreneur Kent Plunkett (Part 1)

Kent Plunkett is the CEO of Salary.com. His efforts there earned him the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2007. He has domain expertise in data on-demand and data syndication, with expertise leveraging this at all levels from the enterprise to the consumer. SM: Where do you come from? Give us some

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Journey of a Child Entrepreneur: Scott Wainner (Part 7)

SM: Do you have a sense of where you want to go from here in terms of your career and businesses? SW: I’m in a period where I am trying to figure that out. I am in this place, business-wise and knowledge-wise, where I am on the cusp of doing something on the next level.

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Journey of a Child Entrepreneur: Scott Wainner (Part 6)

SM: Much of the comparison shopping industry on the Internet is reviewing products, whereas you are reviewing the retailers. That is the big differentiation? SW: It is. ResellerRatings has always been in this weird niche. Most merchant reviews are only found on shopping engines like Shopping.com. It positions us uniquely because we do not allow opt

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Journey of a Child Entrepreneur: Scott Wainner (Part 5)

SM: The site was shut down while you were negotiating the purchase? SW: It was only down for a couple of weeks, thankfully, so it was not damaged too much. There were a few articles written saying that ResellerRatings.com was gone. It was unique; I don’t know too many websites that just plain shut down.

Journey of a Child Entrepreneur: Scott Wainner (Part 4)

SM: How old are you now? SW: Twenty-nine. SM: What happened between 20 and 29? SW: The high point was the sale to EarthWeb, and it went downhill from there.

Journey of a Child Entrepreneur: Scott Wainner (Part 3)

SM: How did the sellout craze affect you? Were people coming to you trying to buy your site? SW: I had been in Portland for a couple of months when out of the blue I got an email from Andover, which is the company that bought SlashDot and was later acquired by VA Linux. They

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