Brothers Make Career by Giving Away Something for Nothing - a Million Bucks! Online Sweepstakes Gets and Keeps its Members' Attention!

Feature & Business Editors/High Tech Writers

FEATURE...

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--Aug. 2, 2000

While most Internet entrepreneurs are desperately seeking millions in venture capital to fund a great idea, two Florida dot-com brothers want to give away the big bucks in order to expand their company.

Doesn't sound quite right, does it?

But it works! In just 18-short months, WinDough(TM) has achieved enormous success growing from an initial $10,000 giveaway to a $50,000 game and finally a million-dollar game in cash and prizes, introduced by its founders, Scott and Dan Kurland.

After debuting its million-dollar sweepstakes on May 15, registered membership jumped by 350,000 and now totals more than 1.2 million. In addition, according to PCDataonline.com, a leading source of Internet intelligence and data, WinDough, which typically listed in the top 200-300 Web sites, ranked a stunning number 73 the week of July 22, scoring 46.5 million page views and a reach of 3.2 percent.

With its regular members, mostly women between the ages of 20 and 40, Windough.com President Scott Kurland says the demand is huge. "We found a simple way to motivate a lot of people to sample e-commerce Web sites. We offered them a chance to win something for nothing."

Through its patent pending technology, WinDough drives Web surfers to e-commerce sites by putting the advertisers' banner in the same "Instant Prize Window" as the winning notifications. Players can watch for winners while doing other things on their computers, such as word processing or sending e-mails. And the strategy is working: Windough.com has an ad banner click-through rate nearly five times the industry average and a user reach of more than two million per month.

"Our content is advertising, but the Web user doesn't mind because the advertising banners alternate with the prize banners," said WinDough Vice President, Dan Kurland. "And our advertisers don't feel like their banner ads are in cyber-limbo."

"We're in the middle of an attention economy," said Scott Kurland, WinDough's founder and CEO. "The key to succeeding as an online publisher is to grab the consumer's attention and point them toward somebody's e-commerce site where a transaction can be made."

Scott and Dan Kurland, both in their twenties, started generating attention well before Windough.com. In his teens, Scott put a television station on the air in his Hillsborough, New Jersey high school and wrote the software to display the school's activities. After earning an undergraduate degree from Ithaca College, he went to work for Time Warner's Interactive Television Division. When Time Warner dumped the project, Scott went back to school, earning a Master's from Carnegie Mellon University in human computer interaction and design. With his unique degree in hand, Scott created his own online venture, iToast, a company of Internet-based products and services designed with "simple to use" as its fundamental attribute.

IToast's first Web business was called MemberSites, which was geared toward families and organizations. For just $9.95 per month members received a basic home page and a free e-mail account.

Brother Dan also took an interest in the business. While attending Penn State, he worked part-time for iToast signing up several fraternities to MemberSites. After 6 months in business, Web giants Yahoo and MSN started offering the same services for free, making it difficult to continue with the venture. After graduation and time spent honing his skills as a graphic artist, Dan joined iToast.

One night Dan and Scott were watching the movie One Crazy Summer, about a guy who sat around for the entire summer waiting for a radio deejay to call with the million dollar question. The character never left his room. Picture the guy's unkempt beard, wrinkled clothes, piles of dishes, empty potato chip bags. . . . Then one day the deejay calls with the million-dollar question, and the phone goes dead!

That's where Scott and Dan Kurland came up with the idea for the Windough.com sweepstakes game. The movie taught them that people will pay attention when there is a chance to win money and prizes.

After a year of running it out of their Ft. Lauderdale apartment, the brothers transitioned to an executive suite for a few months and finally to a full-fledged office in Boca Raton. They also attracted the attention of an investment group and received $1.65 million for the company's first round. This enabled the Kurlands to purchase additional servers, hire a staff and implement a banner advertising sales campaign.

"With everyone out there trying to create a dot-com career, we knew we had to come up with something unique that would compel people to pay attention and also provide advertisers with qualified shoppers," said Scott Kurland. "We've found a nice niche in the dot-com industry that allows our members to have some fun, win money and prizes, and find the goods and services they are seeking -- on the Web."

Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, Windough.com, Inc. develops, markets and supports a family of simple-to-use promotional Web site products and services. Windough.com is typically listed among the Web's top 100-200 most visited sites and has more than one million registered members. The WinDough game is licensed and bonded in all states that require it, including Florida and New York. For more information on WinDough, please contact the company at (877) Win-Dough or at [e-mail].