The Class of 2007: Where Are They Now?

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Kwiqq Growth

Mylonas' pan-European interests keep him on the road constantly. He spends his time traveling between his offices in Amsterdam, Athens, and Rome. Incredibly, he has even more ideas to execute this year. He is tight-lipped about the details but says Dot Kite is set to introduce a new women's brand focused on accessories and fashion items.

When we talked to him last year, Raj Anand's Brighton-based Kwiqq, whose Web-based software can be used to create customizable social-networking sites, was only six months old. The recognition Anand garnered from the BusinessWeek contest snowballed into a mountain of publicity. He was featured in a dozen business and tech magazines and went on to accumulate more business and design awards. He was even invited to speak at the British Library, a host of universities, and several young entrepreneur events.

So what about the business? Kwiqq's revenues have grown tenfold in the last three quarters, and Anand has tripled his staff, from three to nine. Using the money he made this year, his team has started developing a product to be sold through retail. Anand says customers willing to buy his software off the shelf would find a more robust set of features, including one that allows administrators to track traffic on their new social networks.

Although Anand says the economy threatens to strain his marketing budget, he remains optimistic. "Companies that increase their marketing budgets during a recession make it bigger on the other side," he says. Kwiqq is exploring expansion into the U.S., as well as France and Germany.

Wakoopa's Big By-Product

Last fall, Wakoopa, a social network founded by Dutch entrepreneurs Robert Gaal and Wouter Broekhof, counted 6,500 members. Today, the network—which makes it easier for software users to find, share, and track applications being used by other members—boasts 50,000 people. The site has tracked some 400 million hours of software usage over the last year.

Gaal and Broekhof abruptly upended their business model earlier this year, when they realized the potential of one of the network's by-products—profiling software users by accumulating data on their demographics and activity. Wakoopa's aim now is to give software makers a way to track how their products are being used, by whom, and how often. Gaal and Broekhof hope to attract small software vendors who don't have the time or budget to create and analyze their own metrics. They entered into talks with venture capital firms this summer and signed a $1 million deal in June.

Coming soon: The pair are gearing up to make their software available on a Web-based platform to track the sorts of applications that users create for Facebook and Google. Wakoopa also has received 150 applications in response to its search for a software-savvy chief executive to direct the company's operations.

Bulgarian entrepreneur Boris Kolev managed to overcome a major blow to his Sofia-based JT International, which offers IT and marketing services. Earlier this year, Kolev's spirited founding partner, Bilyana Hristova, resigned her position and holdings to travel and pursue her studies full-time. "We had a small crisis after she left," says Kolev, who had to hire three people to match her output. "She was very enthusiastic about everything that she did."

Innovation at JT International

Despite the loss of Hristova, JT International has managed to expand. It now counts 50 clients, most of them Bulgarian, for whom the company provides software and Web design, product innovation, brand promotion, and public relations. As of last summer, JT International had seen a 90% year-on-year increase in revenue and added an innovative marketing solutions team to the other services it provides.