Charles Conn
Co-Founder and CEO
CitySearch
Despite the fact that nearly everybody is going global these days, being local is still where it’s at.
That’s the premise upon which Charles Conn has staked his reputation, and his business. So far it seems to be working.
What Conn is bringing to online users in major cities around the world is up-to-date information about entertainment, sports and weather via Pasadena-based CitySearch. That’s terrain traditionally covered by local newspapers, but there has been increasing demand for more current information online.
Since Conn and Bill Gross of Idealab! co-founded CitySearch in 1995, the company has developed more than 18 city sites in the United States, Australia and Canada. Looking for new beachheads, Conn jetted off to Europe last week.
The company derives its revenues primarily from the fees it gets for hosting Web sites for businesses. CitySearch’s first-quarter revenues of $3.1 million were half the amount it generated in all of 1997. The company is seeking to build on that growth with a planned stock offering that could attract more than $50 million.
Though CitySearch has formidable competition from Microsoft Corp., which offers its own online city guides, it has formed dozens of partnerships that allow it to co-brand with the likes of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and affiliates of ABC and CBS.
A graduate of Harvard Business School and a former partner with the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Conn brings considerable real-world experience to the Internet arena, which is often driven more by creative genius than business smarts.
“The Internet community has a lot of great innovators, but Charles brings serious business measurement,” said Bill Gross, chairman of Idealab! and co-founder of CitySearch.
For instance, Conn, on the verge of turning 37, developed a rigorous set of 10 measurements to analyze the top 100 cities in the country when deciding where to launch CitySearch’s first online city guide.
“That kind of business rigor was a great skill that Charles brought to the company,” Gross added.
David Brindley
