Michael Furdyk

Welcome.

Who are you?
Michael Furdyk. My current titles are Conjuror, Wireless & Web Innovation (BuyBuddy Inc.) and Director of Technology (TakingITGlobal).

What have you done?
I started The Internet Exposed (it was at www.i-exposed.com), an online site intended to "expose the ease of the Internet", in 1996. In November of that year, I met Michael Hayman, who was starting a web site called MyDesktop.com with a group of people. I decided to merge my site with theirs and join them.

Almost three years later, in May of 1999, we sold the site to Internet.com for over $1 million US. Internet.com subsequently went on to invest in BuyBuddy.com, a comparison-shopping site I started as part of MyDesktop in December of 1998. In 1999, I co-founded TakingITGlobal, a non-profit organization aiming to inspire, inform, and involve young people by connecting them to opportunities, with Jennifer Corriero, who I met at KidsNRG back in 1997.

In early 2000, I went to Microsoft for six months with Jennifer, and consulted with them on the "Net Generation". Later in 2000, two senior executives from Rogers New Media left their senior posts there to be the CEO and CFO of BuyBuddy, and we closed a $4.5 million (Canadian) round of funding from XDL Intervest.

Now, in 2001, I'm focusing on strategy and partnerships for BuyBuddy, and helping TakingITGlobal grow globally.

What is this?
I get quite a few e-mails with a lot of questions. I want to give everyone the same time and attention, and I love to talk to people and help them, but I wanted to get a basic set of questions answered, so I could focus on providing unique advice to people, and so that they could easily get the best answers from me on the same questions I'm asked most often. And now, on to the questions!

Why did Internet.com buy your web site?
At the time, they were preparing for their IPO. It makes sense to think that they wanted to acquire to to build up their valuation. Also, we had a pretty massive community of loyal users. Something like 120,000 people had registered to use our discussion boards, across all of the sites (MyDesktop, WinPlanet, LinuxPlanet, HardwareCentral, VirtualDr, Webpedia). Also, we had an awesomely dedicated team of people who did really good work, and who were all used to working virtually. Probably a combination of those three reasons made us a good fit.

Why did you sell your web site? You're a sellout.
We sold MyDesktop because we saw the future opportunity in E-commerce through BuyBuddy. Selling advertising was very tricky, and even working with the best ad networks, like DoubleClick and FlyCast (we were one of FlyCast's first sites -- they're now known as Engage Media after CMGI acquired them), we were still seeing much bigger growth with BuyBuddy. Internet.com, with a large and experienced salesforce, could do a much better job of monetizing MyDesktop's traffic and userbase. We put our energy into BuyBuddy, which Internet.com invested in, and started to build the same community there, but around buying products.

What's your vision for BuyBuddy?
BuyBuddy was started to fufill a simple goal: Help people make smarter buying decisions. Throughout all three phases of the buying process (education - helping the consumer understand what they're buying, decision - finding the product that best meets the consumer's needs, and purchase - finding the best retailer to fufill the order), we provide intuitive tools that lead consumers to making more informed decisions, on the web, and in stores.

Can I sell my web site for $1 million?
It's possible, but much trickier. Here are a few elements I believe make web sites valuable:

  • Stickyness. If people have reasons to stay on your site, and come back to your site frequently, you'll build a loyal userbase, which makes for a much more lucrative acquisition.
  • Barriers to entry. If there's something about your site that can prevent other sites from competing, you have a better chance of getting funded or acquired. Web-based e-mail was a good early example of this: users wouldn't want to change their e-mail address, so they'd stick with the same free e-mail service.
  • Unique revenue streams. How are you making money from your visitors? If you've found interesting ways to monetize your userbase, or managed to build a subscription service that actually has a good number of people paying, you've obviously created something of signifigant value.

What do you think about x?
Here's a few of my published opinions on certain stuff: (more to come!)

How do I get in touch with you?
You can reach me at michael@furdyk.com. If you want to send me things in the mail, here's my address:

80 Bloor St. West, Suite 900
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 2V1
Michael Furdyk