With competitors like these...
November 6, 2001 In the summer of 1999, Pressflex attended the World Association of Newspapers' big annual convention. A genial Swede, Ola, approached Pressflex's stand. Ola seemed a little too smooth and eager, but we figured talking couldn't hurt.
Ola was a salesman for MAN Roland, one of the world's big press equipment companies. Ola expressed interest in Pressflex's vision of using the Internet to deliver low-cost, high-quality Internet services to publishers. He offered to help us get a foothold in Sweden.
That fall, I travelled to Sweden, stayed at Ola's house, strolled a lakeside path to his beautiful yacht, cruised across Sweden in his Volvo and met some nice conservative publishers. Over lunch in Stockholm at the end of my trip, Ola, along with his friend Bo, an august member of the Swedish investment establishment, expressed a strong interest in investing in Pressflex.
The next week, we sent Ola & Co a stack of business plans and projections. After some small haggling, they disappeared.
Last fall, nearly 18 months after our first encounter, we heard that Ola and Bo had created a company called "News Presslink," gotten $2 or $3 million in investment from a Swedish VC and were weeks away from launching a product to "provide a total concept solution for media and newspaper corporations seeking to establish or consolidate their presence and brand on the www."
At first glance, the vision sounded a lot like ours. Some people suggested we sue.
Instead, we laughed and wrote Ola a note welcoming him to the market. The promised product was high-end, presented with a lead-hand and missed the point. As far as we could tell, that product never materialized.
Well, another year has passed.
Now News Presslink has its own shiny new website. My friend Ola's name doesn't appear, nor do the names of many other humans.
And I see that News Presslink is attending another darn newspaper expo next week to launch what it promises is "the most up-to-date 'digital-media-publishing-toolbox' available on the market today, including a wide range of information, entertainment, advertising and shopping functions in line with the specific desires of the new media visitors."
Nearly three years after we met, we can now say: welcome to the market, gentlemen!
