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November
24, 2003, Vol. 74, No. 14F
You might think they are hot (or not), but these alums have definitely made it On a recent rainy
evening students gathered in Evans Hall to hear two Berkeley EECS alumni
spill the secrets of their dot-com success. James Hong (B.S.’95)
and Jim Young (B.S.’94, M.S.’97), the founders of the three-year-old
Web site, Hot or Not.com, were happy to share the impetus and inspiration
for their achievement . . . beer. Hot or Not.com
was born on a Tuesday afternoon while Young and Hong were hanging out
and drinking in their living room. They talked about how a girl they
just met was a perfect 10 and then joked about starting a Web site where
people rated other people’s appearance on a scale of one to 10.
As a welcome break
from his Berkeley EECS Ph.D. work, Young built the site in a few days
and sent it to some friends as a joke. Unintentionally
and to their amazement the site’s popularity spread like wildfire.
Friends sent it to friends, and within an hour they got submissions
from people they didn’t know. Within a week an
article about Hot or Not.com appeared on Salon.com, followed by stories
in the New York Times, London Observer, and BusinessWeek. The pair even
appeared on a daytime talk show. They were also both included inEntertainment
Weekly’s “Top 100 most creative people in entertainment”
list. The media frenzy
drove traffic to the site without the pain of spending a penny on advertising.
Three years later, Hot or Not.com boasts three million users and has
become a profitable business. After working from
a house in Mountain View for the last several years, the pair recently
rented office space in downtown Berkeley and are now hiring engineers.
Their unorthodox
success story may be a wacky mix of luck and accident, but Young says
it required hard work and long hours to take the company to profitability.
In the midst of a soft advertising market and the dot-com downturn they
relied on their engineering experience, resourcefulness, creativity
and business skills to keep the Web site afloat. “The advertising
market was in a slump, so we found another way to support the site.
We developed a dating service that members must pay to use,” says
Young. Hot or Not.com
pays the bills, but success and visibility also come with their own
special perks. “The owner
of the 49ers heard about us recently and invited us to watch the game
from the owner’s box,” says Young. Both Young and
Hong always dreamed of starting their own company. Before stumbling
onto this winner they both experienced several failed businesses. Ironically,
success came when they weren’t expecting it and were just having
fun. Fun is definitely
the secret of his success, says Young. His 80-hour weeks don’t
seem like work to him because, as a self-proclaimed computer geek, it’s
what he’d be doing anyway. Currently Young
is finishing up his Ph.D. work on embedded systems design and soon hopes
to wrap up his 18th full-time semester at Berkeley. He then plans to
recreate the atmosphere that helped get them to where they are today.
“We are going
to turn half of our new office into a living room,” he says. For more, check out hotornot.com or apply for a job at iwanttowork@hotornot.com. |
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