Alan Brigish's Wazee Ventures is major mover of specialized information onto the internet.

First of all, the name: Wazee is Swahili for wise old persons. "Wazee.com is a place where knowledgeable people in the information industry can meet and cross-fertilize ideas, products, contacts, capital, alliances and partnerships. From such a venture we can only hope that wisdom will be imparted and sought."

Wealth as well as wisdom also seems to be imparted to the Wazee partners and their clients. President Alan Brigish says they see "phenomenal potential" with a number of ventures principally focused on expanding the offerings of specialized information publishers on the internet.

Wazee Angel Investment Network

Wazee Information Ventures' Wazee Angel Investment Network consists of approximately 25 angels who have successful operating, technical, strategic planning and acquisition experience in the information industry. The variety of their backgrounds allows them to help portfolio companies form strategic alliances across the communications spectrum, including such companies as CBS, Microsoft, and Panasonic, Brigish said.

Wazee's other ventures form a "commonality," Brigish said, which helps them apply the most appropriate hardware and software to their own and their clients' online expansions. For example, Enfish Technology is a personal desktop portal that brings all of the information sources one cares about together in one place to allow working with them all seamlessly.

Another example is AudioBasket.com, which delivers personalized audio content such as news and other relevant information on demand. AudioBasket's proprietary technology has attracted partnerships with such leading media organizations as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, CNN, ABC News, and Bloomberg.

LA411 and NY411

A recent Wazee success story involves LA411 Publishing Co. The LA411 Directory, which provides about 13,000 listings of companies and individuals in the West Coast film and TV production services market, was founded by Deborah Goldblatt in 1979. Brigish and Giles Goodhead, Wayne Cooper and Marshall Cooper bought it four years ago, expanded it tremendously online and offline, and recently sold it to Cahners (NL/NL 3/31/00). Goodhead remains CEO in charge of day-to-day operations.

However, what they didn't sell shows one of the ways they work--and make money. They retained an online B2C auction site they founded as a natural extension of LA411, which offers "acres of movie and TV memorabilia for fans." These auction sites show so much potential that Cahners is interested in becoming a minority stockholder.

Two years ago they also launched an East Coast version, NY411, which has grown tremendously and has become a leader in the production business.

The partners' Vizium LLC is a marketing consulting company that helps businesses with e-marketing strategies. It offers a complete array of skills, consulting services, disciplines and software. Vizium enables organizations to get the information they need to improve customer identification, acquisition, retention and growth, to drive personalization, and to build one-to-one relationships.

Online newsletters

"Many newsletter publishers don't understand the online world," Brigish said. "They can't just put their company or print newsletter online and expect results. We help them develop a strategy for going online using the latest internet know-how and technology."

And if you don't have the money to launch an internet enterprise, there's always the Wazee Angel Investment Network. "I must get about six calls a day out of the blue from people looking for money to go online. Most of them, though, only have an idea, not an existing product or management team."

Does that mean the Wazee Angels are interested in existing newsletters? "Sure," Brigish answered. "I wish I had a few more publishers with a product that has online potential. I know and I like newsletters."

Check out wazee.com and click into "How We Work" for guidelines on how to submit an inquiry.

Goodhead and the Cooper brothers are also principles in International Information Investors, which acquired Kennedy Information Co. in 1996 when it had assets of $2 million. It now has revenues of more than $10 million and this year expects to qualify for the INC 500 list as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S (NL/NL 1/31/00).

Industry Model

In many ways Alan Brigish is an embodiment of the evolution of the newsletter and specialized information industry.

In a personal aside, he told NL/NL, "I've done very well in the newsletter and information business. The people and the industry have been very good to me. I've made some very good friends." That's a sentiment that many successful newsletter publishers share--that this is still an industry where editors and publishers share their expertize in a collegial manner.

* Established print products (directories, newsletters, special reports) being enormously expanded on the internet;

On the professional level, Brigish's innumerable enterprises are a road map of where the field is going:

* A cornucopia of online marketing strategies that take advantage of e-mail, web sites and other electronic "relationships";

* The melding of seemingly disparate products and services into seamless e-commerce;

* The evolution of purely subscription-based information companies into ones that depend also on specialized advertising and other products that complement the valuable content that is a hallmark of the industry.

About Alan Brigish

Alan Brigish is president of Wazee Information Ventures LLC and the chairman of Media Publishing International LLC. He is also a director of Enfish Technology (www.enfish.com), Audiobasket.com (www.audiobasket.com), RestaurantRow.com (www.restaurantrow.com), and Vizium LLC (www.vizium.com).

Previously, Alan co-founded SIMBA Information Inc. in 1989 after a 25-year career in applying information systems technology to online and electronic publishing services in the US and Europe. SIMBA publishes business newsletters, research reports and directories, hosts conferences, manages an online media information network, and provides consulting services on the global market for information publishing and distribution. He has studied virtually every attempt to move traditional publishing from paper to electronic formats for over 20 years. SIMBA was sold to Cowles Media Co. in 1996. It is presently owned by Primedia Information.