boo who? Literary critic, entrepreneur, Hollywood protagonist

Next week the story of one of the most spectacular dot-com failures will hit the bookshop shelves. Lisa Burroughes caught up with former boo CEO and founder Ernst Malmsten in London to find out just what he's learnt.

When you meet Ernst Malmsten it's difficult to believe that only 18 months ago he was running a multi-million pound international business.

His lanky frame and slightly nervous disposition are at odds with the image of the successful and glamorous entrepreneur, living the Champagne, caviar and Concorde lifestyle so often presented in the press.

The most striking feature of the 31-year-old founder of boo.com is his grey streak of hair. Around the world there are hundreds of entrepreneurs of similar age - each of them veterans of the 1999-2000 dot-com campaign - sporting that same grey streak.

Yet it's boo that became the symbol of unrestricted ambition and spectacular failure characterising that time. In just 18 months it burnt through £100m - enough to set up a chain of high street retailers.

In his forthcoming book boo hoo: a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe, Swedish-born Ernst Malmsten aims to set the record straight on exactly how the money was spent.

"It wasn't caviar or Champagne. We flew Concorde perhaps more than once, but I think that was more a symbol of what the internet was at the time. Of course we spent lots of money but we worked hard as well," he insists.

"I was quite shocked when the company went bankrupt. So much had happened in that time. I think it makes a great story."

But the book is no literary masterpiece - there's an uncomfortable mix of prose and chronology, and it name drops at almost every opportunity.

The story documents Malmsten's early life as a literary critic. He teamed up with Kajsa Leander - an old university friend, former Vogue model and later to be boo.com's co-founder - to promote Swedish poetry in the US. They set up a publishing company, LeanderMalmsten, spun an internet venture off that, and then embarked on boo.com.

boo.com was one of a new breed of 'e-tail' businesses, in its case promising to deliver fashion and sport brands to anywhere in Europe or the US. But to cut a short story even shorter, by May 2000 the company had gone very publicly bankrupt.

Malmsten explains: "Lots of people are now very hostile to us. They blame us, especially in Sweden, for what has happened in the industry because we were the first company that went bust."

It is the feeling Malmsten is trying to profit from his failure that has left a bitter taste in his critics' mouths. He's even approached Hollywood about turning his story into a film, although speculation Universal is already casting Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt in the lead roles is exaggerated, he says.

"I haven't signed on the dotted line yet, but I think it would make a great film," Malmsten awkwardly admits.

What makes the story exciting is the glamour. With Leander as his co-star they dazzled the media with their A-list celebrity connections. An example was the launch of boo's Paris office. To celebrate, staff were taken to the exclusive Parisian restaurant-club Man Ray - a venue they shared with US music producer and rap star Puff Daddy, who was holding a party to celebrate his latest album.

In his book Malmsten recounts hazy recollections of the evening drinking vodka and grapefruit, mixing with the likes of Kate Moss, Jean-Paul Gautier and Johnny Depp, and explaining the concept of boo's internet shop assistant to Ivana Trump.

Even in an over indulgent dot-com world this behaviour seemed a step too far - underneath it all, it turned out, lay a company flawed on almost every level.

"Our vision was too ambitious and was very difficult to live up to, and then of course you get the backlash when our launch gets delayed and everyone starts to write about it," Malmsten adds. "It became the company that everyone loved to hate."

boo.com simultaneously launched 20 offices worldwide to support a website that was so heavily laden with the latest design technology only those with the fastest computers and internet connections could access it.

Those lucky enough to get through the site were greeted with a limited choice of brands and an exasperating delivery process.

Malmsten may have been trying to "be big and be first" - as the times demanded - but he was also young and inexperienced, like many dot-com entrepreneurs.

It all points to an ulterior motive for writing the book. "It has been good therapy for me. I was quite young when I began my entrepreneurial activities and even though I was tired of the whole thing when I started writing, it was good to reflect."

And Malmsten does capture the essence of those fast-paced dot-com days very well. Anyone who worked in an internet start-up then will recognise numerous similarities. He also describes his disappointment at the company's failure with great compassion. "I felt very bad for my employees - they believed in boo."

But for those damaged by dot-com mania, regret is small consolation. His 350 employees believed in the dream, were promised riches, and walked away with nothing. So it goes at start-ups, but rarely in such a spotlight.

These days Leander has settled back in Sweden but Malmsten prefers the anonymity of London. Having just finished writing his book he now intends to take a long rest.

But after everything, he is still confident he has the energy and ability to get another start-up going, as long as he hasn't lost credibility in the venture capital market. "I've always been an entrepreneur so I'll probably come up with something one day. I just don't know if it will be internet-related."

boo hoo: a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe will be out on 1 November 2001.