BW Online | May 24, 2001 | Two Teen Tech Titans Make the Grade

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MAY 24, 2001

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Two Teen Tech Titans Make the Grade
Jud Bowman and Taylor Brockman developed their Pinpoint search engine in high school. Verizon and Terra Lycos rate it an A+ tool for the wireless Web

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When Jud Bowman and Taylor Brockman were looking for backers two years ago to help finance their Internet startup -- which would build customized search engines for Web sites -- they had one awkward problem: They didn't have a phone to receive incoming calls. That's because Bowman and Brockman were only 18, and like other students at their North Carolina boarding school, they weren't allowed to have a phone in their dorm rooms. So the duo gave out the number for the pay phone down the hall -- and implored their rowdy dorm mates to take down any messages.

Since graduation, Bowman and Brockman have had no problems lining up support for their Research Triangle Park (N.C.) venture, now known as Pinpoint Networks. While dot-coms headed by far more seasoned entrepreneurs folded long ago, these teen upstarts are still in the hunt to become the search-engine-of-choice on the wireless Internet -- which Bowman believes will soon explode in popularity. "At some point this will almost rival the PC revolution," he confidently predicts.

Already, it appears that youth is being served: The company signed its first major wireless customer last September, when Terra Lycos agreed to integrate Pinpoint's search technology into its wireless application portal (WAP). And Pinpoint scored another coup this past March, when telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless agreed to incorporate the company's search feature into its Net-enabled phones.

TEST TIME. These contracts were no flukes: Analysts say Pinpoint has a large technological lead in the wireless arena over better-known rivals like Fast Search & Transfer ASA, as well as traditional portals like Google. "Everyone will tell you they're going wireless, but Pinpoint is alone in their space. They've had a 6- to 12-month lead over everyone else, and they appear to be holding it," says Stephen E. Arnold, a search-technology consultant who calls Bowman and Brockman "a couple of Mozarts."

For all the company's technical prowess, Bowman's management skills are about to be put to the test, given the abrupt departure of Chief Executive Tony Blake, a former British Telecom exec who left on May 8 after just two months on the job. While Pinpoint was counting on Blake to help open doors to the major telecom companies, sources close to Pinpoint say there was friction from the start -- largely stemming from Blake's measured approach to decisionmaking and inability to close on a new round of venture funding. "There was a mismatch in styles," says one source close to Pinpoint. "Blake wasn't perceived to be moving quickly enough for everyone's satisfaction." Blake could not be reached for comment.

With no new funding on the horizon, Pinpoint's board mobilized on May 15 to lay off 15 employees, or one-third of the company's workforce. But Pinpoint's investors exude confidence that Bowman can ably fill Blake's shoes -- and help secure the new customers and funding necessary to take the company forward. "He's probably the single most talented person under 30 that I've met in business," says Pinpoint Chairman Steve Nelson, a North Carolina venture capitalist who was one of Pinpoint's first investors.

DYNAMIC DUO. Boardroom clashes and high-stakes dealmaking are a long way from Pinpoint's humble beginnings in a dorm room at the state-sponsored North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics, where Bowman and Brockman were both students. The son of a schoolteacher, Bowman first got the idea for a new way to build a better search engine three years ago, while at a summer "computer camp" sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When he returned to school, Bowman enlisted the help of Brockman, and the two began pulling all-nighters to build their engine.

In the spring of 1999, Bowman eagerly mailed off his first business plan to venture capitalists -- and received no responses. But he lucked out when a friend's father made a call to a local venture capitalist he knew. Suddenly, Bowman -- whose only previous speaking experience was his high school debating club -- was making his pitch before a group of 100 angel investors, who agreed to stake the teens to $800,000. Bowman quickly called Stanford University -- where he had a full-ride Presidential Scholarship waiting -- and received a deferment. Brockman did the same with North Carolina State University. Two weeks later, the teens moved into their new, 6,000-square-foot office and began recruiting their first staffers.

By many measures, the teens complement each other nicely, acting as a modern version of Apple Computer's legendary founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Brockman, who has been programming since age 10, serves as Pinpoint's chief technology officer, and is content to spend most days programming in a back room to the sounds of Pink Floyd. By contrast, Bowman plays the role of Mr. Outside, speaking at industry conferences and jetting across the country to meet with prospective investors and business partners. And neither seems interested in the trappings of success: Bowman still drives his mother's hand-me-down Ford Taurus station wagon, and tools around in a used pickup truck that he bought for $2,000 -- though Bowman notes the latter "is always breaking down."

"ELEGANT SOLUTION." And despite their youth, Bowman maintains that he and Brockman are now perfectly comfortable when dealing with executives who are often twice or even three times their ages. "We use our age against them," he jokes. If the pair feel intimidated, "We just start talking about things where they don't feel so knowledgeable." But youth does have its limitations -- namely their inability to rent cars when they travel on business. "The taxi costs around Silicon Valley are astronomical," sighs Bowman, who only recently rented his first car in California.

Still, the pair have had little trouble gaining an audience with telecom companies and other potential users of their search engine, which they offer as a private-label solution. Says Bowman: "We would much rather power Yahoo! than compete with Yahoo." In building the engine, the teens made a couple of shrewd decisions that have given them a leg up on rivals.

For one, the teens wrote their code in a way that allows their indexed database to be accessed just as easily by wireless device as when searching the Internet by PC. That has helped them avoid the "legacy" issues that have dogged traditional search sites like Google and Lycos, which have had trouble translating the HTML pages in their databases for access via the wireless Web.

By building Pinpoint's engine on a couple of low-cost PCs running on Linux, Bowman and Brockman created a distributed index that they can update more frequently -- and more cheaply -- than other search engines. "Pinpoint's 'secret sauce' is how they created a real-time, parallel index that can be updated really fast, and scaled up at modest costs," notes Arnold. "They don't know how hard a problem they solved, or how elegant a solution they developed."

SKIPPING CLASS. Given that Pinpoint sits at the sweet spot of the wireless Web, some analysts see the startup as a perfect acquisition candidate some day for one of the major Internet portals, or possibly a cell-phone manufacturer like Nokia, that could integrate the company's technology into its products.

By all indications, Bowman and Brockman might view a buyout as a fitting close to their adventure, giving them a chance to rediscover their teen years before they're gone. "I don't want to be one of those 25-year-olds who never went to college," says Bowman. But, he admits, "I probably won't take any business classes. I don't think I'll take Business 101." The travails of building and nurturing a Net startup have been education enough.