HISPANIC Online: QuePasa with the first Sun media

HISPANIC Online on America Online
Back in 1999, I worked for a one-title magazine company based at the time in Austin, Texas. It's only publication was HISPANIC Magazine, a 10-times a year glossy. Based on the content of that magazine, I ran America Online's first widely used Latino forum, called of all things HISPANIC Online. We launched within AOL's proprietary walled service in May 1996. For most of my time there, I was the only person dedicated to the on-line operation.

The main screen of our site featured a picture of an smiling version of the only star in our solar system, the Sun. Over the Sun were the words, "¿Que Pasa?"

In 1996, about the time, HISPANIC Online garnered its first paid advertising, a new Latino-focused site launched called "Starmedia."

In 1998, another Latino focused site, called "¿Que Pasa?" launched.

Unlike either of QuePasa or StarMedia, the one-person HISPANIC Online forum could claim to break-even.

Unlike StarMedia or QuePasa, we had the cards stacked in our favor; AOL hosted our site, gave us the bandwidth to deliver our site, promoted our site and provided us technical support. On top of that, AOL paid us; yes, they paid us to maintain the only dominant Latino space within AOL's proprietary walled service.

It's as if AOL donated the paper for our magazine, gave us the postage, provided us free marketing, provided consulting along the way and then paid us for our trouble.

In addition, we were able to exploit AOL's largess to sell other promotional opportunities on our public web-site outside of AOL's walled content world. As a result, we did a deal with CareerBuilder as one of their first Latino sites.

In my humble opinion, the organization I worked for valued HISPANIC Online only for the payments AOL granted us. I say that based solely on the words and actions of the ownership of the publication. Moreover, the organization expected to continue to live off AOL's largess.

This of course was at the time when both QuePasa and StarMedia had spectacular IPOs. This was at the time when AOL not only stopped paying content providers but began milking companies like QuePasa and Starmedia of the money they raised in the public markets, tapping into the paper wealth of the stock market hysteria of 1999 and early 2000.

In the end, I left to attempt a start-up.

I knew full well that the mini-utopia - the umbrella of AOL - would soon fold closed. For the magazine, that's exactly what happened.

My attempt at a start-up failed, because its success depended solely on a distribution deal with someone of the magnitude of AOL or Yahoo.

John Doggett - one of my professors from business school at the University of Texas at Austin - once said if your success depends on a single contract, you don't have a business.