The Startup Online Reality Series
Way back in 2002, I helped launch AOL for Small Business (later AOL Small Business), a segmented version of AOL. I eventually took over as General Manager, and at our height we were the #1 small business destination on the web with 2.4 million monthly unique visitors, 51 million monthly page views and a custom welcome screen that supported 2.1 million paying subscribers, equivalent to over $540 million in yearly subscriber revenue.
Not too shabby.
Of course, I felt the small business category a bit too staid for my tastes after years of working at AOL Games and AOL Computing, so I tried to come up with something that I thought would wow our users. I eventually landed on the notion that most everyone has the dream of being their own boss. Why not explore phenomenon in what would become The Startup Online Reality Series. Not your traditional reality series — no one was “voted” off the island, but 1) the very first online reality series wherein 2) we followed four small businesses in their first year of business through a blend of insightful articles written by Geoff Williams, blogs by the owners and nifty videos produced by Steve Gibson.
It turns out three of those videos are still online, starting with New World Salsa in Vermont…
I wish I still had the video we shot of our drive from Baton Rouge to New Orleans handy — that was an unforgettable experience.
