Case study of the Image Cafe

Case study of the Image Cafe Image Cafà © was founded by Clarence Wooten in 1998. Prior to that he was also a founded of Envision Designs while he was an undergraduate in 1991 and Metamorphosis Studios in 1994 with co-founder Andre Forde. However, the three company did not really last long. In 1998, Metamorphosis Studios had sold to Medisolv, Inc and Image Cafà © was acquired by Network Solution after sever months of market launch (Clarence Wooten, Jr., 2005). About Clarence Wooten, Jr. Clarence Wooten had a big dream since childhood. His dream is to get rich someday. His childhood hobby was playing with computer games. He was so obsessed with computer that his parents banned him at the age of 14 (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40). At the age of 18, he attended college to study architecture in Catonsville Community College. During that time he believes that by taking up architecture courses can satisfy his creative instincts. In the early 1990s, many professional architects went back to school to upgrade them selves due to the recession. At that point of time, he manages to learn from the senior architects. After the first two failure of his business, he realised that he did not really understand anything about finance after he read the stories from Fred Smith, Reginald Lewis and Bill Gates. This had inspired him to upgrade himself with a business administration and finance. In 1998, he was graduated with B.S. in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40). Clarence Wooten, Jr. Venture Spirit Clarence Wooten started Envision Design which was his first business while he enrolled for Catonsville Community College. The type of service he was offering was using form and cardboard to model out a proposed building. The company did not perform well during that time and eventually closed down (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40). In 1994, Clarence Wooten started his second company Metamorphosis Studios with his co-founded Andre Forde by focusing on spec ial effects and multimedia presentations. Their first customer is Bingwa, an educational software company. However, Bingwa require Metamorphosis Studios to relocate to Princeton, New Jersey and worked for Bingwa. After a thought Clarence Wooten and Andre Forde turned down the offer as they know they are heading for something big (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40). Metamorphosis Studios was not a successful project too, in 1998 Metamorphosis Studios was acquired by MediSolv, Inc (Clarence Wooten, Jr., 2005). In early 1998, Clarence Wooten started his third company Image Cafà ©. Back in 1995, internet service began to grow. Many companies had started to create their own companies website in order to promote their products and services over the World Wide Web. However, during that time, many companies do not have their own expertise to create a website. Clarence Wooten knew that this is an opportunity and started Image Cafà © to help companies by design their website to promote their products and services over the web (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40). At the start of Image Cafà ©, Clarence Wooten went around to search for capital in order to start his business. What Clarence Wooten wants was $300,000 capital based on $3 million valuation. In total he received $110,000 from 10 different investors. Image Cafà © website was ready to launch after four month of preparation. However, at that point of time, Clarence Wooten had utilised the cash during the launch. He went back to the existing investors to ask for additional $150,000 in form of bridge loan. This time, Clarence Wooten expects to raise $3million at $10 million valuation (Kathryn F, Spinelli, 2004: 33-40).