Avon – Kimbal Musk has delivered his 15-minute presentation dozens of times, refining it over and over again in his mind and during meetings.
It’s the pitch he uses to recruit software engineers and to generate excitement among business analysts and the media.
On Wednesday, inside a room at the lavish Ritz-Carlton hotel near Beaver Creek, he faced a much tougher crowd: venture capitalists.
“You’ve been alone online for too long,” Musk told more than 50 people, including deep-pocketed investors, during the annual Venture Capital in the Rockies Conference. “Being around other people changes everything, and that’s what Me.dium can do.”
Boulder-based Me.dium, founded in 2006, is at the intersection of three hot technology areas: social networking, Internet search and website discovery. Other companies in the general realm include Digg .com, Stumbleupon.com and Del.icio.us.
Me.dium’s online service allows participants to see and visit the websites of other users in real time, while also engaging in instant-message chats.
Me.dium intends to generate revenue through targeted advertising, sponsored links and, potentially, enabling corporate representatives to connect live with Me.dium users to provide a “guided shopping” experience.
Several venture capitalists pointed to Me.dium as one of the hottest draws at his year’s conference, which had 33 presenting firms.
“They were one of the companies that I came to see,” said Marc Averitt, managing director with Okapi Venture Capital of Laguna Beach, Calif. “It’s a little gimmicky, but what they are doing is pretty impressive.”
Catharine Merigold, a general partner with Boulder-based Vista Ventures, added: “There is no question in my mind that people will adopt it.”
Merigold, who is not connected to Me.dium, said she believed that young people will be the first to use the product.
Yet, alleviating fears about privacy and persuading people to try the technology will be among the company’s largest challenges, said Karsten Weide, an analyst with research firm IDC.
“Distribution is their biggest problem,” said Weide, who is based in San Mateo, Calif. “If there are just 1,000 users, the company will go nowhere.”
Me.dium has about 2,000 users, who must use a Firefox Web browser to access the service. New users must be invited by existing ones. Growth has been intentionally limited, Musk said, as the 30-person company seeks to refine its technology.
Musk, the company’s chief executive, said the product will be broadly available later this year, including a version for Internet Explorer.
Me.dium already has received money from two venture firms, Denver-based Appian Ventures and Boston-based Spark Capital. Noted local venture capitalist Brad Feld is an investor and board member.
Musk, 34, has dipped into his personal reserves to get the company going, drawing from the pool of money he secured when he sold his first startup company, Zip2. Sold in 1999 for $307 million in cash, Zip2 provided online-publishing software to newspapers and other companies. Musk also was an investor in PayPal, the Internet payment processor.
Musk also invested in FunkyTalk.com, a social-networking website that eventually failed. Musk said the company was essentially a precursor to MySpace.
After that, Musk pursued his passion for cooking, studying at a French culinary school. He eventually returned to Boulder to start his restaurant, the Kitchen.
Musk, who is married with two young children, said at that point he thought he would never work in the software business again. He said the chance to work on Me.dium changed that.
“It’s a primal instinct to be around people, and we are bringing that to the Internet,” said Musk, speaking earlier this week from his Boulder office. “And from a revenue perspective, this can be very powerful.”
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-954-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
