January 13, 2000

Ten Fast Facts

PiranhaNet WHO: A division of Piranha Productions, a group of media companies founded by Brett Stevenson in 1993. WHAT: Produces Web solutions for a wide range of clients. WHERE: Headquartered in downtown Seattle.

Fast Fact #1: PiranhaNet recently designed a unique Web page for Polyglass USA Roofing Materials.

Comment: "In the construction industry, Polyglass is definitely our flagship project," says Ian Lurie, vice president of PiranhaNet. Polyglass is a multinational manufacturer of commercial roofing materials headquartered in Italy. "Some of these roofing companies are monsters," notes Lurie.

Fast Fact #2: The Polyglass site features an automatic spec generator.

Comment: "That's the real power behind this (Web site)," says Lurie. Selecting roofing materials is a step-by-step process involving five elements: the number of layers; how they will be attached; the cap; the interply; and the base. With each variable comes numerous choices. Making sure each of those choices is compatible is a complex process involving dozens of products and thousands of possible combinations. PiranhaNet created a program that allows PolyGlass sales staff and customers to generate a specification online by addressing each element in sequence. Like a funnel, the program narrows the number of options at each step until producing a final spec. When it comes to roofing, "you will not find another Web site doing that out there right now," says Lurie.

Piranha Productions President Brett Stevenson.

Comment: "All of my contacts come through the roof," quips Lurie. "They don't come through the front door. They don't come through the window. They come through the roof."

Fast Fact #4: Lurie has a law degree.

Comment: Halfway through his studies at UCLA, he realized, "I was not going to enjoy being a lawyer." In law, "process is at least as important as the product. That's just not my kind of thing." Even so, his law degree came in handy. Exterior Research and Design, a Seattle commercial roofing consultant, hired him as technical writer in 1993 -- in part because it wanted a writer with legal expertise to help prepare expert testimony for trials.

Fast Fact #5: Lurie started his own company in 1995.

Comment: After getting his feet wet in Web work at Exterior Research and Design, he launched The Written Word. "My original business was providing Web solutions to the roofing industry," he says. Soon, however, he began attracting a more diverse clientele. At its peak, The Written Word employed two full-time staff members and two contractors. In 1998, the company's own Web site received a best of the Web award from the Seattle Times.

Fast Fact #6: Lurie co-authored a book on roofing.

Comment: He wrote "Roofing for General Contractors" with Colin Murphy, owner of Exterior Research and Design. They donated the book to the Roof Consultants Institute. While Murphy got a trophy from RCI, "I didn't get anything," says Lurie. But Lurie isn't complaining. "He paid me. That was better."

Fast Fact #7: Piranha Productions bought The Written Word in 1999.

Comment: Lurie says someone he knew inside Piranha told the company's president, Brett Stevenson, about The Written Word's award-winning Web site "and he gave us a call." At that time, Piranha did not have a Web department.

"We became the Web department at Piranha Productions," says Lurie.

Fast Fact 8#: PiranhaNet's motto is, "Designing the Web -- one byte at a time."

Comment: Acquiring The Written Word and forming PiranhaNet was a natural evolution for a company specialzing in TV and video such as Piranha Productions, says Lurie. "The two [TV/video and the Web] are slowly coming together," he says.

Fast Fact 9#: Lurie recently spoke about the use of the Web at the annual convention of the Roof Consultants Institute.

Comments: About 50 people attended his presentation, but his pitch went for naught. "No one was bored," he says. "Everyone liked it. But no one thought they were quite ready for it."

Fast Fact 10#: PiranhaNet wants to produce more construction-oriented Web solutions.

Comment: Project management over the Internet is the wave of the future, says Lurie, but many companies remain reluctant to get their feet wet. "I've been trying to explain and sell this to construction people for four years now," says Lurie. Some companies worry about posting potentially sensitive information on the Web. Others are concerned that that not every member of a project team might be Web savvy. Even so, Lurie hasn't given up on that market. "We're definitely trying to crack it."

Previous columns:

• Ten Fast Facts, 12-09-1999
• Ten Fast Facts, 12-02-1999
• Ten Fast Facts, 11-25-1999
• Ten Fast Facts, 11-18-1999
• Ten Fast Facts, 11-11-1999
• Ten Fast Facts, 10-28-1999