Profile Of Success - Scott Wainner

At age 6, Scott got his first computer, an early Texas Instruments computer given to him by his grandfather. By 14, he was taking computers apart and putting them back together. At age 16, he started a website call SysOpt.com. The site maintained an overclocking database to see who had the fastest system. I remember being at the number 1 spot for a little while. During this time, Scott started another site call ResellerRatings.com that allowed users to rates online resellers. ResllerRatings and SysOpt grew tremendously during the boom years.

In the summer of 1999, Scott received an email from EarthWeb with a buyout offer. After months of back and forth negotiations, EarthWeb acquired Scott’s two sites plus another site call CodeGuru for $12.4 million in cash and stock. Scott never stated how much of the $12.4 million went to him and how much went to CodeGuru. Scott had just turn 21.

As part of the purchased contract, Scott remained at SysOpt to serve as the Editor-In-Chief. Before the sale, Scott had dropped out of college because he was already making more money than a senior level Silicon Valley engineer, which was what he was studying to be. Now he had sold his sites for millions and he still gets to run it. In addition, with a big parent like EarthWeb, he would have access to resources that would allow the sites to expand. However, that didn’t happen.

By the end of 2000, the internet was crashing. EarthWeb got acquired by Internet.com and the sites became a low priority. Internet.com cut SysOpt’s budget by 90% and in September 2001, told Scott to pack up and leave.

After Internet.com released him, Scott disappeared off the radar. Then, about six months later, I get an email from him saying he has started a new community based tech site call TechIMO.com. The Internet was still dead at this point and I was wondering why Scott would want to do another site. He had more than enough money to retire on when he cashed out to EarthWeb. The answer is Scott loves this stuff. Like many of the old school tech sites, Scott never started SysOpt to make money – it was a hobby. I have stated that even if TTZ made no money I would still be updating it today. Scott is the same way.

Shortly after starting TechIMO, Scott started PhotoPost and ReviewPost. PhotoPost would go on to become one of the best selling photo gallery software on the net – it’s used by TTZ Gallery and 4,000+ websites.

In April 2002, Scott pulled off a dot com coup. The Internet was still dead and Internet.com issued a statement that they were going shut down ResellerRatings because it was losing money. Upon hearing the news, Scott call up Internet.com and bought the site back – for a fraction of what he sold it for.

Today, Scott’s Internet Empire is run under an umbrella corporation call All Enthusiasts, Inc. Scott won’t reveal income figures but it’s easily in the millions. The best part of this story – Scott’s biggest and most profitable website is the one he bought back. Internet.com must be kicking themselves.