Boo Hoo: A Dot.com Story from Concept to Catastrophe
Ernst Malmsten
Language: English
Pages: 386
ISBN: 0756783305
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The rise and fall of boo.com is an insider’s look at the eighteen months of euphoria that ushered in the dot.com era.
some hitches. The building had been without power for much of the day. ‘It’s bloody London Electricity,’ Edward explained. ‘They’re digging up cables on Carnaby Street.’ The tech team got round the problem by running extension leads through our windows to the office next door, which hadn’t been affected. ‘We’re almost there,’ Edward said. ‘I’ll ring you back when we’re ready to go.’ But now there’d been no word for about an hour. The soundtrack to Buena Vista Social Club had started to play on
this as a key issue. ‘No discounting.’ ‘I like the fact that you’re going out to all of the European markets,’ Lucas continued, almost to himself. ‘We’re going out to the world,’ Kajsa noted. ‘Even better.’ Naturally, we said nothing about the negative response we had received from New Balance’s Boston headquarters two months earlier. It just didn’t seem relevant now. Anyway, things had moved on a lot since then. In recent weeks, the company had at last begun to take the internet seriously.
other’s way while trying to take our seats. After we had exchanged some awkward smalltalk, in which no mention was made of our earlier problems, Kajsa launched straight into the presentation. We knew that the next half an hour would decide everything and this realization spurred us into giving one of our best performances. When the prototype came out, Arnault leaned forward slightly in his chair and for a second looked set to say something, but the moment passed and he sat back again. There was
the contract now. Otherwise we can’t do any more work.’ It was a couple of days after our return from Atlanta. I was standing by the doorway of our office, watching as a group of workmen lugged in our latest batch of Ikea desks. The contract that Leagas Delaney wanted us to sign was supposed to cement a more permanent partnership. Only with the guarantee of millions in fees that our signatures would give could Leagas start moving ahead on our ad campaign. Fielder had been badgering us about this
renowned.’ Results were already starting to come in, Kogan had told us just before we left London, but she had been vague about details. ‘I’ll tell you everything when you get here.’ Our usual hotel – the SoHo Grand – was full, so we had booked rooms at the Royalton in mid-town. We arrived to find a faxed schedule of magazine interviews from Kogan already waiting for us. There were just three names. What is this? I thought. Some kind of a joke? I went to bed tired and angry. We met Kogan in