Entrepreneurs 2000-2002: The 'Where are they now?' file (III)

Javier Perez-Tenessa
2000: Co-founder and CEO eDreams
2002: Co-founder and CEO eDreams
Start-up base: Spain

Javier Perez-Tenessa was 18 months into his travel start-up when silicon.com last spoke to him in September 2000. At that point, eDreams was planning to move into France and had put aside substantial investment funds for a UK launch. However, the recession changed the company's plans.

Perez-Tenessa explains: "We did reduce our growth a little. Instead of going into France and the UK we kept our investment in Italy and Spain where we are now the number one travel site on the web."

Consumer shopping on the web is the one thing that has not been affected by the recession, Perez-Tenessa said. Since the company's conception its growth in terms of sales and expansion has risen 100 per cent year-on-year.

The company will continue to concentrate on its home markets over the following three years and is interested in making acquisitions of smaller, similar companies or those with interesting technology.

eDreams will continue with the multi-channel approach to selling package holidays it has recently initiated, involving expanding the company's consumer access points from the net and call centres to include affiliated travel agents in 'physical stores'.

Perez-Tenessa expects eDreams to be profitable within the next year.

Ingo Munzer
2000: Founder and CEO europop.net
2002: Founder and CEO europop.net
Start-up base: Germany

Ingo Munzer is still at the head of his internet service management company. Business at europop.net is either going extremely well or rather badly, depending how you interpret his inability to respond to numerous calls from silicon.com about his company.

If you have some time Ingo, give us a call!

Guy Kawasaki
2000: CEO Garage.com
2002: CEO Garage Technology Ventures
Base: US

OK, so he's not strictly an entrepreneur and he's not based in or from Europe but Guy Kawasaki gave us a unique peek into the world of start-ups and funding back in 2000.

He's well-connected, the former evangelist for the Mac at Apple and, you spotted it, someone who's not changed his company but changed its name, dropping the .com. Garage.com used to be known as an incubator of sorts and now, as it's grown up, it is an investment bank for start-ups.