™
                                                      Internet Specialists "on the Web since 1994"

About First Online™ Los Altos Incubator™
Authors of the best-selling book Engineering Your Start-up: A Guide for the High-Tech Entrepreneur, we are management consultants providing professional advice for promising high-tech and Internet-related start-ups, primarily in the San Francisco Silicon Valley Bay Area.

Contact Information
Jim Swanson (resume)  jswanson@[remove]alum.mit.edu  Phone (650) 941-4500;  Fax (650) 941-2104;  878 Hoffman Terrace, Los Altos, CA 94024

Mike Baird (resume) (newer resume)  mike@[remove]mikebaird.com  Phone (805) 772-2044;  2756 Indigo Circle, Morro Bay, CA  93442  more...
WARNING:  It appears (Mid 2005, May 2006, June 2006) as if someone may be using firstonline.com's identify (or a similarly named organization) to conduct an illegal scam - whereby business owners are phoned or billed for some services, and threatened with court costs and fees from collection agencies if not paid.  If you have received any related communications, please e-mail copies to us.  We have so far been unable to obtain copies of any phone numbers, names, addresses, or related documentation, so we are unsure if and how the identity of the Firstonline.com domain name, related physical addresses, e-mail addresses, and/or personal names are in fact being used, and if so, in what specific ways.  If you are not a close client of Firstonline.com and do not personally know both of the Firstonline principals Jim Swanson and Mike Baird, you should not be receiving a bill from us.  Please forward information to us if you have been contacted.  Thanks, Mike Baird & Jim Swanson. (NEW Related Documentation for possible law enforcement follow-up).  Update 9-29-06... we just heard from a lawyer in Delaware whose client had received invoice/legal-threats regarding monies owed to a "First Online Direct" (not associated with us), with an address on Church St. in NY.  There was no reference in the correspondence to our domain name, physical addresses, names, or phone numbers... the only similarity appears to be related to the name  "firstonline"

History.  We really were one of the "first online!"  Our predecessor company, First Online, Inc., a California corporation from 1993-1999, was one of the world's first Internet Professional Services and Access Providers, developing some of the first commercial web sites -- such as one for FMC Corporation's Automotive Service Equipment Division in early 1994 -- long before the World Wide Web took off.  Specializing in the automotive industry, we produced custom Internet-related systems for Toyota, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Firestone, Penske, Mazda, Hyundai, Chrysler, and Edge Diagnostic Systems, now a subsidiary of Snap-on Incorporated.  We have since, through our Los Altos Incubator, incubated several Internet-related start-ups. 
 
Los Altos Incubator helps new high-tech and Internet-related companies formulate and implement viable business strategies.  We play the role of strategic advisors and coaches, serving as board members when appropriate.  Our most salient projects to-date are GetActive Software, Multrix, and Hipbone (Hipbone was acquired by Kana Q1 2004; Eric Schmidt and Ben Rosen were investors in Hipbone).  Most of our deal flow and projects derive from encounters with readers of our books on starting hi-tech companies.  A completely new 2003 2nd edition of Engineering Your Start-up, by Swanson and Baird is now available.  http://firstonline.com/eysu  is a shortcut to the related page at Amazon.com, or buy from our PPI publisher.  Here is a flyer describing EYSU2.  The entire book was previously published online at eysu.org. While those chapters have been removed, you can still find several sample chapters at PPI, and see these related PowerPoint presentations of interest.  We work with only one or two clients at any point in time in order to adequately focus on "home run candidates."

We provide

  • Free evaluation of your business plan.  Submit an executive summary to jswanson@[remove]alum.mit.edu and mike@[remove]mikebaird.com.  Do not include a non-disclosure agreement as a condition for reviewing your plan.
  • Jim Swanson's and Mike Baird's advice and coaching.  We cover strategy, contracts and negotiations, business plans, investor relations, partner and customer and professional service provider relations, etc.  In return, we receive an equity interest in the start-up and/or (deferred) compensation.
  • The technical resources of Matthew David Swanson and Tuyet Trinh Phan.
Past and Present Clients:


GetActive Software, Inc.
previously LocusPocus 6/2001


Meritage Technologies
acquired Foci Technologies 2/1/2001


Hipbone acquired by Kana Q1 2004


Multrix
© 1994-2006 First Online, previously First Online, Inc.     First Online ™ and Los Altos Incubator™ are trademarks of First Online 
Revised  27 Mar 2007     Please report bad links, etc. to mike@[remove]mikebaird.com   
Google

Web firstonline.com