I started my career in Ecommerce in 1994 with my business partner Scott Sanfilippo. Times were so much fun back then. I was 23 years old, and was going to college part time, and working on our first retail E-commerce website – TheFerretStore. Take a look at this image from The Wayback Machine from 1997. Tell me that isn’t funny. This was still back before there was E-commerce software. To think we built this into a great company that we sold to Doctors Foster and Smith some 15 years later.
The Internet was so easy back then. There was virtually no competition. I feel very bad for some of the retailers today trying to struggle with all of the competition. There was no Google AdWords, no Comparison Shopping Engines… Nothing. Back then, you’d search the word “Ferret” and The Ferret Store would be results 1 – 10 in Yahoo and Alta Vista… Yes, good old Alta Vista. That was the Google of our time. I wonder if it still even exists. We’ll I’ll be… It does exist, and it almost looks the same as 1997! Just what you’d expect from Yahoo! Progress…
So I feel like an old fogie… You don’t find many people in the “E-commerce Industry” for 20+ years. It’s been a fun ride… I’m glad I took the risks that I took. Some good, some bad, but I had a lot of fun and I don’t ever regret the path I chose…
I do sometimes take on consulting. If you have an E-commerce problem, I will find you a solution.