CENTURY CITY, Calif., April 18 (LocalBusiness.com) -- So what if you can't laugh all the way to the bank? You can still bank on laughter.
Just ask Farhad Mohit. His dot-com burned through a respectable chunk of $75 million in venture capital, but the online shopping-comparison site is still in business. And, Mohit, a pony-tailed Wharton business school graduate, is putting his experience in perspective.
The co-founder and chairman of Santa Monica-based BizRate.com, acknowledged that entrepreneurs are getting older. "I'm 32 going on 60," Mohit said.
The luncheon audience at the Southern California Venture Technology Forum howled.
Mohit was among a five-member panel of Internet-era survivors who shared -- and bared -- lessons from the new economy. About 500 people turned out for the event yesterday at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
Chaos has value
"Narrowing your market can sow seeds for problems," said panelist Howard Freedman, a long-time investment banker who is now executive managing director of Lido Capital, a Newport Beach-based financial adviser to the utility, telecommunications and technology industries.
A company sometimes needs "chaotic change," said Freedman, who sported a bow-tie and wire-rimmed glasses. "A narrow market doesn't always offer a solution" when a company needs to re-invent its business model.
Freedman also pointed out the difference between being an entrepreneur and building a business. "A person who has the confidence to go out and make money is an entrepreneur," he said. "To build a business is a very different thing."
Aspiring business builders brave enough to gut it out on the venture capital route should be "conscious of from where and from whom you take your financing," advised Rachel Prishkolnik, an attorney and co-founder of EthicalShopper.com. Last January, EthicalShopper.com merged with Green Marketplace where Prishkolnik is now vice president of business development.
Before the bubble burst
"I love building companies," said Julie Schoenfeld.
With an engineering degree from Tufts University and a master's in business from Harvard University, Schoenfeld founded NetEffect Systems a few years ago when dot-coms were bubbling like freshly popped champagne.
Schoenfeld sold her North Hollywood-based software company to Ask Jeeves Inc. before the market went flat. The all-stock deal was valued at $288 million.
Today, shares of Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq: ASKJ) are under $2, a mighty fall from the winter of 1999 when shares peaked at $120. Schoenfeld has since moved on to found another start-up, OEwaves Inc., which designs and produces components for the optical networking and wireless communication markets.
Lightening up
Her experience has taught her to lighten up.
"I used to take myself so seriously," Schoenfeld said. She has held on to her optimism about the future. Besides optical technology, the streaming video market is another bubble Schoenfeld sees forming on the Internet horizon, especially in Los Angeles.
"The players are still here (in Southern California)," said Jim Jonassen, founder of Riviera Partners, a Los Angeles-based venture talent management firm, "and most of them will be here for a long time."