First Day of School
I pulled my rented Ford Explorer in front of the non descript building on Main St in Whitinsville, MA just after 9:00 AM on a cold winter morning in November. It had been more than two months since the deal to sell the Live-Audio_Board had been sealed. During that time I’d been searching for office and data center space in Seattle, though later I was told the offices would be located in Whitinsville. I’d found world-class data center space in Seattle, we just needed to seal the deal. At the time, the LAB was running from a managed colo space at Rackspace.com in San Antonio, Texas.
Just about the time the sale went down, the colo host at the time had discovered they hadn’t billed the prior year’s worth of fees, and halted service without notice. These unorganized morons, operating under the name of Speakeasy.org were in danger of quashing our deal. I called the support line, got them to reprovision the server and promptly transfered all of the data to an account at Rackspace. The LAB was offline for about three hours. That was old history at this point. It happened a couple of months ago, and we were safe at Rackspace now. I was at the door of my first “real” job in about 20 years. I didn’t know what to think.
I entered the rather well used retail space, converted to office space, still itching from the cold. I’m a California boy, relocated to Seattle just in time to catch the Grunge Rock revolution of the early 90’s. For me, 60 degrees is cold. It was below freezing and there was snow on the ground. I was about 10 feet into the office when a woman that I recognized, asked if I needed any help.
“I think I work here” was my reply.
“Excuse me”, she responded in a thick New England accent. I had recongnized her as the assistant to the other founder of this particular venture, the guy that bought my site. She met several hundred if not several thousand people in her tenure as the assistant to the co founder of one of the most successful pro audio manufacturers at that time. I wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize me. I didn’t expect her to.
“I’m Dave Stevens”, I offered.
She was expecting me. She was the Office Manager. She responded welcoming me and giving me an impromtu tour of the still spartan facilities. We were to occupy this bottom suite, next to the local public access TV channel and the business office of the local cable TV provider until we moved into the soon to be remodeled upstairs offices. One of the reasons it was decided to locate in this building was because the other founder bought it, along with another dilapadated property across the street. Downtown Whitinsville was a wreck, a shell of it’s former self. The Walmart down the street had ravaged the local businesses to the point where except for a few stores, a real estate office, Subway sandwich, Blue Moon Diner (one of the best breakfasts in the world, and I’ve been all over the world), Peg’s Diner in the old train car, the downtown strip was pretty much wiped out. Way to go Sam Wall. Another local economy butt fucked out of existance. At least the big pro audio manufacturer was still down the street, a few hundred yards away.
I settled into a desk near the front. The others had already laid claim on their turf. They’d been in the office for more than a week while I was still on the west coast. The cable modem had been installed, but we still lacked a proper network. The installer was due later that day. There was a hodge podge of cables that connected the four others in the office. It was very startup like. My pulse was racing with excitement. This was way fucking cool. I was about to be a mogul. Or so my narrow ass thought…
Just after 10:00, the others began to arrive. First, the Director of Operations. I knew him from the trade show gig he had at the pro audio manufacturer. He suceeded the previous person in that gig that I got to know very well. Too well, in fact, before she left for greener pastures. I’d met him at our AES rollout, where we announce the intention of the site. His tit got in the ringer when we were giving out shirts that might have been considered disparaging to his then employer (and the company our other founder built). There were some pissed off people over that. Bummer… A few weeks later he was offered a position with the newly formed Universal Concept Inc and he took it. I had nothing to do with the name, not that I disapproved. I was called one Sunday night in October, told we were hiring some good folks and this was the name of the parent company. We’d been soft launching and prototyping the site since just after the announcement of the sale. The domain ProSoundWeb.com was registered prior to our deal being consumated. I didn’t think much of the parent company name or staff as I had a date waiting and didn’t want to do any business at that point. That was two weeks prior to my arriving in Whitinsville.
The second to arrive, just after 10:30, was the Goddess of Content. I remembered her from the time I’d spent at the pro audio manufacturer. I thought she was a hottie then, this time I was in love. No, really. She had beauty, brains, attitude (attitude is a must when dealing with me), tatoos and piercings. Nevermind she was 15 years my junior and didn’t share my feelings.
So, there we all were, not really knowing what to do. The other founder made it in about noon and we got to work with our first full staff meeting. I still didn’t know what to think. My prior 20 years were made up of touring and regional PA company operations. I didn’t really know how this regular business stuff worked, though I’d managed and operated a couple of sucessful businesses over the years. I was a fish out of water, though I don’t think it showed.
The five of us were about to do something no one else had done at that point. We were going to introduce the pro audio industry to the world of the Internet. Others had tried. We were going to be the one’s that defined pro audio on the Internet.