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August 3, 2000

Echospace Inc.

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Echospace Inc.

WHO:
An Internet infrastructure developer founded last year by Chad Estes and Travis Fairchild.

WHAT:
Supplies technology to improve Web-site navigation.

WHERE:
Lynnwood

Fast Fact #1: Lynnwood?

Comment: "It was a place where they wouldn't make us sign a three-to-five-year deal for office space," explains Fairchild, executive vice president. "And there's free parking," adds Estes, CEO.

Fast Fact #2: Estes and Fairchild met at the University of Washington.

Comment: Estes was president and Fairchild was vice president of the associated student body at the UW's Bothell campus. Echospace grew out of a business plan they wrote for a class in entrepreneurial management. "We've rewritten it about 30 times," says Estes.

Fast Fact #3: Ten of the company's 13 employees are recent UW grads or current students.

Comment: Estes, 25, and Fairchild, 26, prefer to hire people fresh from college rather than experienced employees because "they haven't been trained in bad habits and they don't cost as much," says Estes. Adds Fairchild, "They also don't stop short when they run into a problem and say it can't be done."

Fast Fact #4: Echospace has developed patent-pending technology.

Comment: Although Estes and Fairchild earned business degrees, both have techie streaks, especially Estes. At 13, he already was an independent contractor, helping people program their computers, create networks and build Web sites. At Echospace, Estes does some programming, but he says the real wizard is Ryan Christianson, lead application developer and the first person he and Fairchild hired. 

Fast Fact #5: The technology offers efficient Web site browsing.

Comment: On a typical e-commerce site, customers browse for information by clicking links that retrieve new Web pages from a server. With Echospace, only relevant information is retrieved, not entirely new Web pages. Downloading the initial page of an Echospace-enabled site takes slightly longer, but subsequent browsing becomes much faster than the traditional method of opening page after page after page. 

Fast Fact #6: Echospace is flexing the power of its technology with a free e-mail application.

Comment: About 1,000 people have signed up over the company's Web site to use the application, which gives Echospace something to show potential customers and also allows it to test its technology.

Fast Fact #7: Echospace is close to landing its first commercial customers.

Comment: Mid-size firms are the target. For one thing, giants such as Amazon have their own research and development departments. For another, they prefer to adopt technology that already has a track record, says Estes. Initially, Echospace will create custom solutions for each client, but it eventually hopes to supply off-the shelf products.

Fast Fact #8: Angel investors are funding the company.

Comment: Initially, they included Estes' father, some of his father's business associates and a UW professor. Later this month, checks totaling between $1.2 million and $2 million are expected to arrive from additional individual investors. Estes and Fairfield spent five months trying to capture venture capital funds, but these days VCs are interested only in "sure things," says Fairfield.

Fast Fact #9: Echospace projects annual revenues of $180 million within five years.

Comments: "We should reach profitability in our second year," says Estes. And what about an IPO? "It's a goal, but it's not an end-all goal," he says.

Fast Fact #10: Estes and Fairfield eventually may recruit a veteran CEO.

Comment: "It's something that we will look at," says Fairfield. "Right now, it's not necessary." In part, that's because Echospace plans to "fly under the radar" to avoid attracting the attention of potential rivals and ensure it can deliver what it promises, says Fairfield.



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