CoolAvenues follows a startup through its early stages as it confronts the challenges faced by all startups: how to raise funding, protect intellectual property, and recruit.  Zefer, is a Boston-based provider of Internet consulting services and solutions
Time of Story: August 1999:

Last month Red Herring began following the progress of Zefer, a young Internet consulting and implementation services company, as it confronted the challenges faced by all startups.
Since last month's column, Zefer has more than doubled in size, to 250 employees spread across four offices. Essential to this growth was relaunching Zefer and creating a new leadership team.
What motivates a startup to augment its founding team? The rise of the Internet has created a new management model, one that blends youth and fresh perspective with seasoned experience and a proven track record. Perhaps the most visible example is Yahoo, where founders Jerry Yang and David Filo share leadership with a business veteran -- Yahoo's CEO, Tim Koogle.

In Zefer's case, our motivation came from having to grow fast: we knew we had to expand our capabilities quickly or risk being squeezed out of the market by more heavily funded competitors like USWeb/CKS, Viant, and Scient. Extending Zefer's management would bring operational skills and, equally important, the credibility to attract significant amounts of capital.

Earlier this year, Bill Seibel and I happened to be presenting our business plans to the same private equity firm (for the record, it wasn't GTCR Golder Rauner, our principal investor). I was trying to raise about $20 million for Zefer, and Bill -- a former executive vice president at Cambridge Technology Partners who built its most profitable division -- was there pitching an e-business firm. After he noticed Zefer's plan in the VC's office, Bill introduced himself.
Several weeks of extensive discussions followed. We passed the "airport test": if stranded together at a remote airport in the dead of winter, we would (1) not kill each other and (2) be able to find things to talk about. Bill and I also became convinced that combining our strengths would get us where we both wanted to go more quickly than we could on our own. To raise a financing round of $50 million to $100 million, Zefer needed Bill and other senior managers. Without Zefer, Bill would have had to build a company and brand from scratch. Marrying Zefer's existing vision and culture to Bill's 25-year track record would create a much stronger story for investors, clients, and recruits. Bill decided to join us as CEO. Not long after, in April GTCR Golder Rauner invested $100 million in Zefer.

We have already put some of that $100 million to work, rapidly expanding our employee count and opening new office locations. We have also acquired the online branding boutique Spyplane and two Internet practices from the consulting group Renaissance Worldwide.

The deals are a big step forward, but they also mean new challenges in integrating people, business cultures, and technologies. We handle this in part by feeling free to disagree with each other. As Bill puts it, "Just because something has worked for 20 years doesn't mean it's right, and just because something has worked for 20 years doesn't mean it's wrong."

Source: This month's writer is, again, Anthony Tjan, a cofounder and executive vice president of the company.
From Red Herring.com