Dr. Drew: Start-up funding wasn't easy
Rebecca Eisenberg, Dr. Drew: Start-up funding wasn't easy, San Fransisco Examiner, 19 Sept 1999
------------------------------------------------------------------
You might think that a popular television and radio personality would have no problem raising money for a Web business, but in the case of Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of "Loveline," a popular radio and MTV television show dedicated to frank discussion of sex and relationship issues, you would be wrong.
Even though Pinsky is a household name — a hero, even — among the millions of 18- to 24-year-olds who comprise the majority of his audience — he spent an entire year unsuccessfully trying to raise capital to place his successful media brand on the Web.
Along with his business partner, Curtis Giesen, a childhood friend and Harvard M.B.A., Pinsky spent two years pitching his idea for a Web community leveraging his Dr. Drew brand, only to be resoundly rejected.
Last fall Pinsky and Giesen finally discovered Guy Kawasaki's new Internet-based angel-investor funding outfit, Garage.com, and contacted him even before the firm had officially launched. A young member of Kawasaki's staff recognized the Dr. Drew name and saw potential in a Web destination dedicated to his fan base. Kawasaki helped Pinsky and Giesen finalize their business plan and made it available to Garage.com investors on his Web site.
The deal funding DrDrew.com was signed in March. Last week the Web site (www.drdrew.com) was launched as an online community dedicated to the subject matter of Pinsky's shows with an emphasis on sexual advice for young adults.
It was a slow road, but for many entrepreneurs, no matter how famous, a familiar one. Speaking before an audience of 1,000 Internet entrepreneurs at Garage.com's Boot Camp for Start-ups conference in South San Francisco last week, Pinsky offered five pieces of advice for dealing with potential investors.
"Follow your instinct." Pinsky's instinct was that there was a strong need for a venue for young people to speak openly about their relationship and sexual issues. When he was initially recruited as a host for his late-night radio show in 1983, Pinsky realized that he was doing a public service by giving a voice to 18- to 24-year-olds regarding their personal lives.
Even though his colleagues in the medical profession disapproved of his media activities and actively insisted that he discontinue the radio show, Pinsky persisted. "I believed that I was doing a service even though the medical community was outraged," he said.
Given the immediate and long-lasting popularity of his shows, Pinsky was right. His advice: "Follow your instincts. There are no signposts out there and many roadblocks. No matter how hard it gets, you must persist."
"Trust and listen to your audience." Pinsky's audience consisted of young people, who consistently voiced the same complaint: "Adults ask us what we want, but they don't listen or hear."
Pinsky heard. "What they wanted was reality." Young people, he said, were tired of being force-fed cookie-cutter sit-coms and television dramas that had no relationship to the reality of their lives. They wanted material that addressed their actual problems and circumstances.
"The television industry is about to face a very rude awakening," said Pinsky. "What the younger, larger audience craves is reality."
So Pinsky, with his radio and television shows and now his Web sites, gives them a forum to talk about their real lives.
"Find people of like minds." For more than a year, he and Giesen could not find people who understood what they were trying to do, he said. They would tell potential investors about their idea for a Web community and get blank stares in return. Until he found Kawasaki, no one seemed to appreciate the need for the kind of frank discussion that his media properties offer.
"When we talked with Guy," Pinsky said, "his response was, 'Why do you need us?' And we knew he got it."
"Don't forget the importance of execution." Even the most farfetched schemes can become huge successes if executed correctly.
As evidence of the importance of execution, Pinsky told the story of his run-in with actress Heather Graham before "Austin Powers II," "Boogie Nights" and "Bowfinger" turned her into a celebrity.
"Heather appeared on my radio show a couple years ago," Pinsky said. "She told us that she had just completed filming a movie, which she described as a film about the porn industry in the '70s, starring Burt Reynolds and Marky Mark."
Burt Reynolds and Marky Mark? Porn industry in the '70s? "Get your agent on the phone right now!" Pinsky told her. "He should be fired!" But, of course, Graham was describing "Boogie Nights," the movie that launched her career.
The lesson, said Pinsky: "A strange idea, when executed well, can become a permanent fixture in our culture."
"Have a purpose." Pinsky's purpose was clear: Use the media to do good for people. That was why he kept his idea from MTV's radar until he had made genuine progress.
"There are a lot of ways to use media to do good," Pinsky said, "but there are also a lot of ways that media can do actual harm." For that reason, Pinsky insisted on maintaining control while growing his product.
"Once we were off the ground, MTV came to us and wanted to work with us, which we are doing," he said. "But it was crucial to be able to build it from the ground with our goals in mind."
Thanks to Pinsky and Giesen's persistence, patience and tenacity, fans of Dr. Drew's television and radio show can now participate in an interactive Web community devoted to their relationship issues. The team also has plans for expansion, keeping in mind the goals of community service that drove Pinsky in the first place.
That is what is so powerful about the Web, Pinsky said, discussing his start-up before his speech at the conference. The Web makes it possible, perhaps more so than any medium that came before it, both to provide services that improve people's lives and to make money in the process.
It is those types of Web ventures that often produce the greatest reward for their founders, in terms of both popularity and financial payoff. DrDrew.com and his grateful interactive audience are living proof.
