The business model for most dot-com startups was (and, in a way, still is) to build an enormous customer base, drain venture capital, and later define a way of turning a profit. No company embodied the spend-now-make-later model quite like e. Digital, which has only turned a profit in one of its 14 years in business. In January of 2000 the company’s stock peaked at nearly $25 per share. 

By  sean evans