Half.com founder talks entrepreneurship, venture capital

When asked about his post-graduation plans in a college survey, future Half.com founder Josh Kopelman checked the box “unemployed.”

“Back in the ’90s, there was no box for ‘start your own business,’” the 1993 Wharton graduate said on Tuesday to an audience of about 50 in Huntsman Hall. At the talk, organized by the Wharton Undergraduate Private Equity/Venture Capital Association, Kopelman shared with the students his experience in entrepreneurship and venture capital. “He has both perspectives,” said Engineering freshman Hong Kim, who attended the event.

As a rising junior in 1991, Kopelman co-founded the internet service company Infonautics Corporation. He cherished the hands-on experience, but after graduation he planned to create a site called “Ebazon” — inspired by eBay and Amazon. He eventually launched the site as “Half.com.”

The site, which went live in 1999, was meant to eliminate paper checks and long waiting times in online shopping. Kopelman said that his Wharton education helped him a lot with Half.com. “I understood the importance of setting a culture, [of] rewarding risk rather than shrinking from it, [of] flexibility.” He targeted a very diverse market, so he had to come up with creative publicity strategies.

First, the team targeted price comparison engines to make Half.com’s lower prices stand out. Then, they paid the small Oregon town of Halfway to change their name to Half.com, which led to “massive amounts of publicity.” Later, they inserted coupon codes on the back of fortune cookie paper slips — their best source of customers for the next few months.

They also hired three Wharton undergraduates, gave each a pair of gloves and instructed them to go and replace urinal screens with ones that said “Don’t piss away half your money, shop at Half.com.”

“[We] had an unbelievable amount of exposure,” Kopelman said.

He is now the managing director of First Round Capital, a venture capital fund that has backed companies such as LinkedIn. In this capacity, he has learned to support the ideas of founders, even when he has a better suggestion. “[I can’t say,] ‘Screw the brownie, make a chocolate mousse,’” he said. “Part of the challenge is to realize I ain’t the cook.”

He has talked to countless aspiring entrepreneurs, and says that the most successful ones “are what we call the ‘heat-seeking missiles’” — those who can detect good opportunities and are always “willing to find bigger and better targets.”

Michael Stone, a Wharton sophomore and PEVC vice president of operations, added that “He shows that undergrads can do pretty amazing stuff while they’re undergrads,”

College junior Jacob Rosenberg, who recently started his own limited liability corporation, said that “My expectations were definitely met. He was very insightful, very helpful.”

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