The £21m drop-out

Charlie Muirhead, not yet 26, is already on to his third internet business. He says it could have been four, five or even six because he's got plenty of ideas but simply hasn't had the time.

He is, he says, "a perpetual entrepreneur".

The Imperial College drop-out had his teeth into business number one when the last e50 list was published. Orchestream, an internet software firm founded with £20,000, has since listed on the London Stock Exchange for £350m, valuing his shareholding at £21m.

Muirhead has not been involved in the day-to-day running of the firm for almost two years, preferring to leave operations to a more experienced executive.

Business two is i-gabriel, a collection of wealthy individuals brought together to act as "angel investors". Their aim is to back and advise budding entrepreneurs with big ideas in need of cash and contacts."There's just not enough risk capital going into the ventures that are going to make a difference in the UK over the next two decades," says Muirhead. "The i-gabriel network is about altruism as well as making money."

The latest business is NetProvider, a newly founded software firm that aims to standardise internet connections. "We've got 25 people and will have 50 by June. We're raising $50m from investors. We're rocking."

Muirhead says he thinks about work "all the time - in the car, at my parents, late at night. The only time I don't is when I'm skiing or scuba diving. It's pretty hard to think about the office when you're underwater and supposed to be checking out fish."

The son of Australians who emigrated to England when he was a toddler, and now a resident of fashionable Notting Hill, Muirhead says he makes a point of enjoying his youth. "I spend a lot of time trying to remember that I'm 25 and I'm only going to be this young once. I don't want to wake up with a wife, baby and house and find I've missed being young."

The boozers

James Oliver and Ian Gardiner launched their website, LastOrders.com, an online off-licence, a week after the e50 was published in October 1999. At the peak of the dot.com mania, Oliver, 33, was worth several million pounds on paper, but he didn't get a chance to spend it. The business went into liquidation in February this year with debts of £2.5m.

LastOrders.com became one of the most high-profile websites operating out of a Scottish hub in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The company was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary. "Flattering but bloody scary," Oliver says.

After raising £250,000 from family and friends, LastOrders went on to raise £2.5m in a second round from investors. But it didn't take long for the company to realise its projections were too optimistic. "We turned out to be undeperforming to a factor of 10."

The company shifted its focus to deliveries for the trade, and marketing consultancy work for brewers. Not all the investors were happy and the business was put into liquidation. The management are buying the name and operations back, and have renamed themselves Adsumo. Six staff were let go.

Oliver is confident that he can make it work second time round. "We all lost money on this, but we know we can get it back. Many of our investors are the same ones we had at the beginning. The hardest thing to do was to put the company into liquidation. But I haven't been put off. We never raised vast amounts and haven't hurt anyone too much."

The success

Clerkenwell may have become the spiritual home of London's emerging dot.com scene but the real money has been made hundreds of miles away in Yorkshire. Peter Wilkinson, 47, Yorkshire to the core and not at all impressed by the combats-and-trainers brigade down south, has built a personal fortune approaching £500m from the internet over the past five years.

At the time of our first report he was running the football and gambling website business Sports Internet. Five months later he had sold it to BSkyB for £301m in a breathtaking piece of deal making.

Prior to that he had helped create Freeserve, the UK's largest internet service provider, and sold another internet business for £85m.

Now he's back with InTechnology, a computer data storage and back-up business worth the best part of £450m, turning over serious money and making a profit.

The secret to his success? "I'm paranoid," he says sitting in his Harrogate office, tapping the ash from his roll-up cigarette into a flip-top bin.

"Always worried it'll go wrong and with an insane desire to succeed. I'm not a bad businessman and that helps. A lot of creative people can't run businesses, but I have a real till mentality and start worrying when there's not a lot of money in the tray."

He describes himself as "a typical Yorkshireman - like a Scotsman but without the generosity" and hates spending money. His two concessions to luxury are a box at his beloved Leeds United football club and a Ferrari. "Well, they're irresistible, aren't they?"

With longish, slightly greying hair that brushes his collar and a 20-year business career, he is the antithesis of the ambitious upstarts. "I really hope that this business will be the last one that I do. I'm 47 and I've flogged my bollocks off for the last 27 years. After this [business] I'll probably disappear and you'll never hear of me again."
John Cassy

Part 2 of the e50

David Rowe, 42
Easynet
What does it do? Internet service provider.
How it's gone: It has been leading the charge for high-speed internet access in Europe and the feisty Rowe remains highly rated in the City. The firm was worth around £170m last time, rose to £700m at one point and is now valued at £81m.
Valuation: £35m last time, just £11m today.

Chris Akers, 35
Sports Internet
What does it do? Provides a football-driven sports news, statistics and betting service.
How it's gone: Akers and partner Peter Wilinson sold the two-year-old sports website firm to BSkyB for £301m days before the market for dot.coms imploded. He netted £15m. Has several other businesses, but the only technology-related one - EuroTelecom - has gone bust, prompting a Stock Exchange investigation.
Valuation: Up from around £7m to £15m.

Ernesto Schmitt, 29
Peoplesound.com
What does it do? Provides platform for unsigned musicians and enables users to download tracks.
How it's gone: The former management consultant's emerging music website has evolved its business model and works closely with big record labels. Employs about 85 in London, Paris and Munich.
Valuation: Schmitt's stake was worth around £8m last time and is about the same this time. But it remains paper.

Cliff Stanford, 46
Redbus Investments
What does it do? Internet service provider.
How it's gone: Could have retired after making £33m from the sale of Demon Internet to Scottish Telecom but instead invested in a variety of projects from his new base in Brussels, where he resides for tax purposes. Biggest dot.com investment is a £100m stake in Redbus Interhouse, which houses equipment for internet firms.
Valuation: Up to £180m from £30m.

Charles Cohen, 31
Beenz.com
What does it do? Online loyalty programme.
How it's gone: Opened office in 12 countries and employed 300 people at peak. Customers were other dot.coms and the market disappeared overnight. It has now closed all offices except in the UK and US. Fewer than 50 staff are left with an "uncertain future".
Valuation: The business was worth £200m. Cohen's stake is estimated to have been £10m but is now not worth an awful lot he says.

Ivan Pope, 39
NetNames
What does it do? Registers internet domain names.
How it's gone: Sold the business in January 2000 but still a non-executive director. Started an internet incubator firm called Pregenesis. "I poured all my worldly wealth into it and it didn't really go anywhere. The problem was we started looking for funding as all the investors fled in the opposite direction." Pope is currently looking for opportunities to get back into business.
Valuation: The £10m is mostly gone.

Paul Myers, 34
X-Stream Network
What does it do? Free internet service provider.
How it's gone: Expanded into Sweden, Norway and Denmark and then bought by French rival LibertySurf for £75m. Myers has since set up Wippit.com, an MP3-based file-sharing website which is described as a legal version of Napster.
Valuation: Around £10m.

Eva Pascoe, 35
Zoom.co.uk
What does it do? Lifestyle website selling fashion, household goods, travel, plus providing news and information services.
How it's gone: By the time of the last e50, Pascoe, who had founded the Cyberia cafe chain, had already sold out and joined the establishment. Zoom is joint owned by high-street retail group Arcadia and Associated Newspapers. She is managing director.
Valuation: £800,000 from the sale of Cyberia.
Research by Laura Milne

Related articles
08.05.2001: Where are they now?
08.05.2001: The e50 - Not so healthy
04.10.1999: Who's who online - The original e50 e-list