Business Blooper: The Future Was Loading

Not every business failure is about a bad idea. Sometimes the idea is exactly right, and everything else is wrong. On May 18, 2000, boo.com shut down at midnight after investors declined a final request for $20 million to keep the company operating. Founded in 1998 by Swedish entrepreneurs Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander, and Patrik Hedelin, boo.com had raised $135 million from backers including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Bernard Arnault of LVMH, and launched simultaneously across 18 countries in November 1999 with 3D product views, a virtual shopping assistant named Miss Boo, and a multi-currency checkout system in seven languages. The problem was that most home internet users in 1999 were on dial-up connections that couldn't load the site. The company was burning roughly $1 million per week with no financial controller and no plan to slow down. Over 400 employees lost their jobs the day the site went dark. The domain name was eventually sold to a travel company and repurposed as a hostel booking website. bsnsBloopers is part of the bsnsDAILYpodcasts lineup from bsnsBasics, hosted by Ron Trucks. New episodes drop every weekday. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Start at www.bsnsDAILYpodcasts.com