Next Internet | What's Next?

Kenneth Chan / Next Internet/ Founder and CEO

Kenneth Chan is an entrepreneur with extensive experience in starting and running profitable Internet companies, having started 10 Internet businesses and obtained $50M in funding. Kenneth Chan is currently the CEO of Next Internet, a fast growing Internet startup headquartered in Silicon Valley.

Previously, Kenneth was the Founder and CEO of Netblue, an Internet Marketing company. Kenneth grew Netblue profitably from his apartment in 2002 to a successful corporation in Silicon Valley employing over 140 people and with a $100M revenue run rate. Prior to Netblue, Ken founded Everyone.net, a leading provider of outsourced email solutions for companies around the world, and ActiveSchool.net, a provider of cost-effective academic applications. Additionally, Ken was a member of Intel's microprocessor architecture group, and participated in the design of the Intel Itanium. Ken holds a B. S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois and an M. S. in Management Science from Stanford University.

In His Own Words
I never liked bios. I believe that bios are, more often than not, dry and boring and never bring the person to life. Because of this, I wanted to dig a bit deeper to come up with an “about me” that truly about me..

I was born in Taishan, a city in Guangdong province of southern China. As a kid, we were amazed to see buses driving by and planes flying over our village. We just didn’t see buses and planes every day.

I immigrated to the U.S. at age 8. I was amazed by all the cars driving so fast on the highways. I was also overwhelmed by supermarkets to see so much food at one place.

Raised in Chicago, I graduated from Lane Tech High School. Lane Tech is the largest high school in Chicago and is extremely diverse with over 60 different ethnicities. I played baseball and ran cross-country. I also went to many Cubs games since Lane Tech was about 2 miles away from Wrigley Field.

Growing up, my dad worked as a cook and my mom worked at a factory. It took about 10 years before my parents saved enough money to buy a carry-out Chinese restaurant in the south side of Chicago. My brothers and I worked at the restaurant. It was there that we learned hard work and entrepreneurship.

My parents are my heroes. From my mom, I learned patience and wisdom. From my dad, I learned duty and will. They currently reside in Chicago Chinatown.

I graduated from University of Illinois and received a BS in Computer Engineering. I was there when the Mosaic Browser was launched and I remembered a bunch of computer-lab helpers dropping of out U of I to form Netscape. I also remember using “Jerry's Guide to the Web” (Yahoo), watching streaming video for the first time via the web, and wasted far too much time playing MUD (one of the first MMORPGs).

After graduating from U of I, I came out to California and worked at Intel on the Itanium project with the intention of attending Stanford. I was 21 when I drove out here from Chicago with my Integra. Besides my roommate Visal, who also went to U of I and worked at Intel, I didn’t really know anyone else in California.

I graduated from Stanford University and received an MS in Management Science. The best thing about Stanford was the videotaped lectures you could view at the library. So I never attended my classes and just worked out every morning. The most impressive thing about Stanford was the avenue of resources. You have open access to world-class professors, engineers, and entrepreneurs — current and future leaders.

I started Everyone.net, an e-mail service provider for small- to medium-sized businesses, during the dot-com boom with five of my friends. We were extremely young. (I think we were all like 24 or 25.) We lived together, worked together, and partied together. I was the CEO and raised the first $1 million in funding from Tony Hsieh/Venture Frog (Tony is the current CEO of Zappos.com) and $10 million in additional funding from El Dorado Ventures. I was 24 years old when I raised the funding. That tells you how crazy the times were in 2000.

I started Netblue out of my San Jose apartment in 2001. It was just after 9/11 and the U.S. was suffering from a recession. My goal for starting Netblue was just to create a stable job for myself for 3 to 4 years. I gave myself $100,000 to work with and told myself that I had to build a profitable business with that amount of resources. We achieved profitability within six months of founding the company.

I was able to grow Netblue from my apartment to over 100 employees. We went from zero revenue to a near $100 million annual revenue run rate in four years. Netblue recently merged with Vendare Media to form a major player in the Internet marketing industry. As CEO there for four years, I did manage to achieve my original goal for Netblue.

I started Next Internet in November 2005. After leaving Netblue, I spent a lot of time thinking about life and what I wanted to do with mine. I really believe I will spend the rest of my career building and running Next Internet. I’m excited to discuss the “whys, whats, and hows” of Next Internet in future posts.

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