Tellme's Naughty Schoolboy

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But, says Forrester's Herrell, Tellme rose to "the top in this space, for sure."

Davis is ever on the hunt for ways to keep it there. He says that in the next two to three years, Tellme will integrate voice and text capabilities with images, video, and sound. Consumers who use voice prompts for movie information might get a color map with theater directions delivered straight to their cell phone. Tellme's staff of 340 is expected to grow about 30% this year.

FAMILY TRAIT.

The search for new recruits, ideas, and technologies takes Davis all over the country. At the end of a typical trip, Davis will churn out a 200-page report in a matter of days, says McCue, Tellme's chief executive. "Angus was always on the leading edge, defining where we needed to go," he says. As someone who can't remember life without the Internet, "he tends to get it sooner."

On the rare days he's not on the road, Davis works from a home office in Providence, R.I., where his desk is littered with photos of friends and members of his family. Entrepreneurial tendencies are in his blood: His father is a Boston lawyer who counsels biotech and pharmaceutical startups, and his mother is CEO of software outfit EstateWorks, an online estate-planning tool.

Davis, who never did mske it to college, also finds himself addressing prep school and university audiences regularly. He's a frequent speaker at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where a case study on Tellme has been taught for more than five years.

OLD SCHOOL TIES.

A message Davis tries to pass on: Don't follow in my footsteps. "I encourage them to go to college -- do as I say, not as I do," says Davis, who serves on the advisory committee for Stanford University's technology and entrepreneurship programs and judges its undergraduate and graduate annual $50,000 startup competitions (see our slide show). His career, he says, featured "lots of good luck that might not be easy to replicate."

Davis' outlook on schooling has come a long way indeed. David Burnham is former headmaster at the Moses Brown School, where Davis got most of his education. Davis was frequently summoned to Burnham's office for failing to "discipline himself to do his homework," recalls Burnham.

Now, Davis volunteers for several hours two days a week as a teacher's assistant at the Paul Cuffee School, where Burnham is president of the board. "You saw [back then] that though he was having a hard time, he'd be a successful person," says Burnham. "We just all had to wait for it to come out." Judging from Tellme's prospects, it appears waiting is over.

Kharif is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com in Portland, Ore.