Business Spotlight: A touch of Silicon Valley on Park Central East

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At first, nobody in the Internet travel industry paid much attention to Chris Noble and Jeff Wasson. Other Web company executives didn't even bother to remember their names, referring to them simply as "those guys from Missouri."|ret||ret||tab|

Financial investors were equally skeptical. After all, here were two guys in their early 20s who had dropped out of college to start an Internet company in of all places Springfield. What Noble and Wasson did have going for them, however, made all the difference.|ret||ret||tab|

They had a good idea, and they knew it. Travel and tourism was booming, particularly on the Web, where researching or booking a vacation online has become commonplace. The pair also complemented each other well. Before leaving school, Noble majored in computer science and finance, and he knew how to stretch a buck. Wasson had majored in travel and tourism, and he had a lot of good ideas. Both were articulate, personable and downright shameless when it came to self-promotion.|ret||ret||tab|

When Noble and Wasson founded their company in 1995, they planned to design Web pages for businesspeople in the area. The idea met with limited success, so in 1997 they changed their focus and formed an online travel reservation service named TravelNow.com.|ret||ret||tab|

An award-winning Web site, TravelNow.com allows visitors to make hotel, airline and rental car reservations. It also contains a popular interactive road map feature that allows visitors to get directions to any street or business location in the United States.|ret||ret||tab|

Unlike many online travel sites, TravelNow.com doesn't overload each Web page with information or ads. Instead, Noble and Wasson use a simple, user-friendly design, keeping fancy design elements to a minimum. Their goal was, and still is, to make their Web site so easy to use that it would sell itself.|ret||ret||tab|

According to Wasson, during their first four years of business, the two raised less than $300,000 from investors. Given their financial resources, Noble and Wasson couldn't rely on the business strategy used by many start-up Internet companies, i.e. spend most of their money on advertising and rack up massive losses just trying to build their customer base.|ret||ret||tab|

"Somebody told me this story once about how the government spent thousands of dollars trying to invent a ballpoint pen that astronauts could use in outer space," Wasson said. "The Russians solved the problem by giving their cosmonauts a 2-cent pencil to use. That's kind of what we've done here. We didn't have thousands of dollars to spend, so we've looked for and come up with alternative solutions."|ret||ret||tab|

One of the solutions they came up with was to enlarge the company's revenue base. Like most travel agencies, TravelNow.com is paid a commission from hotels, airlines and car rental companies when people place reservations on its Web site.|ret||ret||tab|

In addition, TravelNow.com also has an affiliate program with more than 27,000 members. Each affiliate is paid a commission for reservations made via links from their Web sites to TravelNow.com's online reservation system. This system not only provides revenue, it advertises the company's services.|ret||ret||tab|

A third source of revenue comes from selling ad space on the Web site.|ret||ret||tab|

On Aug. 2, 1999, TravelNow.com entered a whole new ball game when it went public. The process used to go public, as with many other business developments, was innovative. TravelNow.com merged with another company whose stock already was public.|ret||ret||tab|

Following the reverse merger, the company formed a board of directors. In addition to Wasson and Noble, H. Whit Ehrler was appointed as vice president and chief financial officer; Chris Kuhn, formerly with Compaq Digital Computer, became CIO; and local businessmen Jerry Rutherford and Bill Perkin made up the board.|ret||ret||tab|

Other important managerial talent also came onboard. One early investor, Ross Summers, left his position as the general manager of AT&T Cable in Springfield to become TravelNow.com's general manager in September 1999.|ret||ret||tab|

Summers' well-honed management skills added a new dimension to the company. Noble and Wasson now had more time to develop their Web site and implement new ideas.|ret||ret||tab|

Initially, TravelNow.com rented 1,200 square feet of office space in the McDaniel Building in downtown Springfield. The company now occupies more than 8,000 square feet of space spread out on three floors, and space is at a premium.|ret||ret||tab|

Part of this is due to a significant staff increase. A year ago TravelNow.com had 11 employees. Today it has 55 employees most are reservation agents who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, answering customers' questions.|ret||ret||tab|

In addition, a 2,000-square-foot satellite office was opened in Denver, Colo., six months ago. Eight software developers are located at the Denver office, which oversees the company's computer systems. These software developers are continually adding features and making improvements to the company's Web site.|ret||ret||tab|

In its five years, the company has grown in both size and profitability. TravelNow.com's revenues grew by more than 300 percent annually from 1996 to 1998. In 1999, revenue grew by more than 500 percent, according to Summers. |ret||ret||tab|

For the six months that ended Sept. 30, 1999, the company posted a $650,000 loss because of a noncash charge for employee stock bonuses.|ret||ret||tab|

This month TravelNow.com attracted the attention of Tudor Investment Corp., a Boston financial firm. Tudor purchased 500,000 new, restricted convertible shares from TravelNow.com at $9 share, investing a total of $4.5 million. According to Summers, most of this money will be used to update software and buy bigger and faster computers, which will allow customers to load Web pages faster. Part of the money also will be used to add a cruise and tour package reservation system.|ret||ret||tab|

"Right now, we're a first generation Web site," Noble said. "We want to improve the site's content, make it easier to use and add some merchandising features. You can't look too far ahead in this business because everything changes so fast, but ultimately, we'd like to see TravelNow.com become a major player in the industry."|ret||ret||tab|

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TravelNow.com|bold_on||bold_on||ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|Year founded: 1995|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|Owner's name:|bold_on||ret||ret||tab|

TravelNow.com Inc.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|Address and phone number: 318 Park Central East, Suite 308, 65806; 864-3600|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|Web site:|bold_on||ret||ret||tab|

www.TravelNow.com|ret||ret||tab|

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