Altuit in the News
Austin American-Statesman Article
Aug 6,2001
Mindful of past, startup tries to take it slow
By Lori Hawkins
This time around, Chipp Walters is taking it slow.
His new upstart, Altuit Inc., has only two employees - himself and business partner Chris Bohnert. Walters is using his own money to get the company, which develops software for building and managing Web sites, off the ground. Venture capital will be avoided rather than pursued. Growth will happen organically, not by buying up competitors.
He's doing it this way after seeing what happened when his first company, Human Code, entered the fast lane.
Found in 1993 by Walters, Liz Walker and Gary Gattis, Human Code was one of Austin's first software startups. Working first in a rambling house on West Avenue and later from a storefront on Congress Avenue, the multimedia design company married hot technology and a close-knit, often kooky corporate culture. It created shrink-wrapped CD-ROMs for the Discovery Channel and business CD-ROMs for clients such as Apple Computer Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.
When venture capital began pouring into Austin in the mid-1990s, Human Code eagerly went along for the ride. It raised $1.5 million from Austin Ventures and Applied Technology with the goal of transforming the small, profitable design shop into a software publishing powerhouse.
"Suddenly, it was all about growing as big as possible as fast as possible," Walters said. "It was, 'Go out and buy enough companies to get revenues above $20 million. Focus on being acquired or going public.'"
Human Code did buy companies, including small multimedia developers Riverrun Media, Presage, Monsterbit and IDEC of Japan.
It also went through countless business plans in its attempt to move from selling services to selling products. There was CDFactory, which created CD-ROMs for businesses, CDF Technologies, which licensed software tools designed by Human Code, and Xtranet, which allowed interactive game play.
"Investors were after liquidity, which is their job," said Walters, who left Human Code in 1997 when new management was recruited. "But it's the old journey-versus-destination thing. The old people at Human Code were focused more on the journey, because for us, that was the more exciting thing."
A year ago this week, Human Code was bought by consulting company Sapient Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., for $104 million in stock. The deal was hailed by Human Code executives as a chance to skip the IPO roller coaster and go straight to a bigger - even global - business arena.
But it didn't work that way. Consulting firms cratered along with the Nasdaq, and Sapient's stock crashed as well - it has fallen from $64 (adjusted for a split) at the time of the transaction to $5.82 Friday. The company has drastically reduced the Austin operation and is expected to close it.
Walters says he did OK in the deal, selling most of his shares before the stock tanked. "I didn't make enough to go retire and live happily ever after, but at least I sold it in time. A lot of people didn't," he said.
Now, after a few years of horse ranching in Dripping Springs and doing some consulting, Walters is ready to try again. The dot-com noise has quieted, and the air is clearing. The timing feels right.
"There's not the sense of urgency that there was in the past," he said.
With Altuit, Walters is taking the old-fashioned approach. "You start out small, and you focus on building strong technology. You realize, hey, those old models that said you had to make money first, those still work," he said.
Altuit recently released its first product, called Hemingway, which is server software for building and managing websites. It allows users to connect wirelessly from anywhere in the world to create and update Web content. For example, a sales executive traveling in Hong Kong could use her Palm Pilot to update numbers on her company's internal Web site.
For now, Hemingway is targeted at consumers and small businesses, with the goal of building it into a business-to-business content management system for corporations.
Altuit's office in the Bank of America building downtown is furnished with little more than a tattered futon and a couple of mismatched desks. But whether it grows beyond what it is now doesn't matter.
"This time it's not about the big bang at the end. We've had our big bang," Walters said. "Now we're just trying to do some good work. We're in it for the journey."
Mindful of past, startup tries to take it slow
By Lori Hawkins
This time around, Chipp Walters is taking it slow.
His new upstart, Altuit Inc., has only two employees - himself and business partner Chris Bohnert. Walters is using his own money to get the company, which develops software for building and managing Web sites, off the ground. Venture capital will be avoided rather than pursued. Growth will happen organically, not by buying up competitors.
He's doing it this way after seeing what happened when his first company, Human Code, entered the fast lane.
Found in 1993 by Walters, Liz Walker and Gary Gattis, Human Code was one of Austin's first software startups. Working first in a rambling house on West Avenue and later from a storefront on Congress Avenue, the multimedia design company married hot technology and a close-knit, often kooky corporate culture. It created shrink-wrapped CD-ROMs for the Discovery Channel and business CD-ROMs for clients such as Apple Computer Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.
When venture capital began pouring into Austin in the mid-1990s, Human Code eagerly went along for the ride. It raised $1.5 million from Austin Ventures and Applied Technology with the goal of transforming the small, profitable design shop into a software publishing powerhouse.
"Suddenly, it was all about growing as big as possible as fast as possible," Walters said. "It was, 'Go out and buy enough companies to get revenues above $20 million. Focus on being acquired or going public.'"
Human Code did buy companies, including small multimedia developers Riverrun Media, Presage, Monsterbit and IDEC of Japan.
It also went through countless business plans in its attempt to move from selling services to selling products. There was CDFactory, which created CD-ROMs for businesses, CDF Technologies, which licensed software tools designed by Human Code, and Xtranet, which allowed interactive game play.
"Investors were after liquidity, which is their job," said Walters, who left Human Code in 1997 when new management was recruited. "But it's the old journey-versus-destination thing. The old people at Human Code were focused more on the journey, because for us, that was the more exciting thing."
A year ago this week, Human Code was bought by consulting company Sapient Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., for $104 million in stock. The deal was hailed by Human Code executives as a chance to skip the IPO roller coaster and go straight to a bigger - even global - business arena.
But it didn't work that way. Consulting firms cratered along with the Nasdaq, and Sapient's stock crashed as well - it has fallen from $64 (adjusted for a split) at the time of the transaction to $5.82 Friday. The company has drastically reduced the Austin operation and is expected to close it.
Walters says he did OK in the deal, selling most of his shares before the stock tanked. "I didn't make enough to go retire and live happily ever after, but at least I sold it in time. A lot of people didn't," he said.
Now, after a few years of horse ranching in Dripping Springs and doing some consulting, Walters is ready to try again. The dot-com noise has quieted, and the air is clearing. The timing feels right.
"There's not the sense of urgency that there was in the past," he said.
With Altuit, Walters is taking the old-fashioned approach. "You start out small, and you focus on building strong technology. You realize, hey, those old models that said you had to make money first, those still work," he said.
Altuit recently released its first product, called Hemingway, which is server software for building and managing websites. It allows users to connect wirelessly from anywhere in the world to create and update Web content. For example, a sales executive traveling in Hong Kong could use her Palm Pilot to update numbers on her company's internal Web site.
For now, Hemingway is targeted at consumers and small businesses, with the goal of building it into a business-to-business content management system for corporations.
Altuit's office in the Bank of America building downtown is furnished with little more than a tattered futon and a couple of mismatched desks. But whether it grows beyond what it is now doesn't matter.
"This time it's not about the big bang at the end. We've had our big bang," Walters said. "Now we're just trying to do some good work. We're in it for the journey."