AprM 18, 2001
Meredith Herald
Campus Extras 5
Business speaker pleases audience
Dr. Gray Licon
Professor of Business
The School of Business held
its spring session of the Gradu
ate Business Speaker Series on
Mar. 29. 2001, in Kresge Audi
torium, for Meredith’s MBA
students.
The speaker was Scott
Wingo, the general manager of
GoTo Auctions. His speech
addressed the pros and cons of
joining a start-up in today's
business climate.
Wingo discussed his back
ground in start-ups and
described what it takes to suc
ceed as a start-up business. He
is an engineering graduate
from the University of South
Carolina and has a master's
degree in engineering from
N.C. State.
He created his first start-up.
Stingray Software, in 1995.
using sweat equity and an ini
tial investment of $ 15.000.
company in 1998 to Rogue
Wave Software for $21 million.
In 1999. he founded his sec
ond start-up.
AuctionRover.com, which
formed agreements with many
partners, including eBay.
Nine months later, he sold
AuctionRover.com for about
$200 million to GoTo.com,
which renamed it GoTo Auc
tions. Today, Wingo manages
that online auction company,
which has about 75 employees
in Research Triangle Park.
The audience of MBAs
especially enjoyed Wingo’s
description of guerrilla market
ing techniques, which he used
to get publicity for his start
ups.
His company plastered polit-
ical-style signs in the yards of
many competitors and poten
tial partners, at major intersec
tions near these firms and even
in bathrooms at important trade
meetings.
He used these tactics in
order to increase awareness of
his firm without major market
spending.
They even used an employee
dressed in a dog suit to get tele
vision coverage at a local
WWF event.
Most people who attended
the talk found it to be humor-
mostly non-engineer and non
programmer audience could
understand, and he candidly
answered questions from the
audience.
He noted that he couldn’t
have accomplished all that he
had without the support of his
wife, Kris, who helped him
with the two start-up business
es.
Feedback from Meredith’s
MBAs and business faculty
was positive.
Wingo was the first male
speaker in this series in the past
four years, and this was the
first year that male MBA stu
dents have been in the audi
ence.
In response to a question
about what he would have done
differently, Wingo noted that
he would have started a compa
ny at an even younger age. He
noted that he expects to contin
ue mentoring some area start
ups in the future.
The Distinguished Business
Speaker Series is funded by a
grant from Mr. Bob Luddy at
Captive Air, Inc. Dr. Gray
Ligon of the School of Busi
ness chairs the series.
Campus
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Within two months, his first
new software product was on
the market, and he sold his first ous and user-friendly, especial
ly coming from a software
engineer.
He spoke in terms that the