LiveWorld Transcripts

American Express presents

David Joerg, Co-founder of Vindigo
Making Money on the Web

November 02, 2000

David Joerg and partner Jason Devitt founded Vindigo, a hip city guide for Palm Pilots, in the spring 1999. Read what David had to say about their ideas for making money on the Web.

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AmexVoices: Welcome to our chat, brought to you by American Express Small Business Services Voices from Main Street program and FSB online, Fortune magazine's small business Web site. Tonight we are delighted to have David Joerg, who co-founded Vindigo, a hip city guide for Palm Pilots, as our guest. He and his partner, Jason Devitt, quit their investment banking jobs to create a prototype of Vindigo in spring 1999. They were having trouble attracting investors, so they decided to release Vindigo on the Internet. The response was overwhelming - people flocked to the Vindigo site to download the application for free and beamed it to their Palm-using friends. They secured $9 million of venture capital in their first round, and they inked a strategic content deal with Zagat to provide restaurant reviews in exchange for equity in the company. Today, their company flourishes as they take on additional partners, advertisers, and of course, Vindigo users. You can visit the Vindigo website at www.vindigo.com and read more about David and Jason's success story at www.fsb.com/fortunesb/articles/0,2227,914,00.html. . David is here with us tonight to answer your questions about how to make money on the web. Welcome, David!

David Joerg: Hello, and thanks for having me.

Alice: What gave you the idea for Vindigo?

David Joerg: In late 1998, the Palm VII was announced, and that got us thinking about all the amazing things you can do with the Internet in the palm of your hand. We quickly realized that one of the most amazing things was to be able to find out everything about the world around you. People, places, things.And then we realized that we didn't have to wait for the wireless Web to hit primetime - to hit the mass market.

Zita: Was it difficult to come up with a business model for Vindigo?

David Joerg: The tough thing was choosing from among many different possible business models.

Jess: What does Vindigo mean?

David Joerg: The word vindoco is Latin for "to liberate or make free."

Val: Do you think the dot.com world is too saturated right now with companies who do the same thing?

David Joerg: There are very few companies who do what we do. It is really difficult to stake a claim on the Internet.

Oceanserenity: What neat things can you do with this gadget? It sounds kewl!

David Joerg: Check it out! www.vindigo.com. We have a live demo right on the site. Restaurants, shops, movies, bars - find it all in any of 11 American cities.

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