Raising Entrepreneurs

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Young entrepreneur Ben Behrouzi

The moment Behnam Behrouzi saw his first computer as a teenager, he was hooked.

Then he heard descriptions of the “Information Superhighway,” and he became a dreamer.

“The ideas just began to click the moment I was introduced to the Internet,” said Behrouzi, who lives in Danville. “I dug into all the possibilities that surrounded it right away, and I loved it.”

Now 28, Behrouzi has started over 20 businesses. His latest venture, Pleasanton-based DotNext, helps create Internet companies.

“There are still a tremendous number of ideas out there that need to be developed,” he said. “My job is to help turn the best ones into something people will use.”

The search engine LeapFish is a recent creation to come out of DotNext.

Some people think Leapfish is an attempt to sink Google, the leading search engine, but Behrouzi insists that’s not the case. The note, “It’s OK, you’re not cheating on Google,” tries to underline Behrouzi’s point.

“I’m not naive in that I think people are going to drop Google,” he said. “It’s just some people are going to like what LeapFish has to offer better.”

The purpose of LeapFish is to serve as a one-stop site where people can be exposed to not only the sites a Google, Yahoo or MSN might find, but also images, videos, news and blogs they might not know are out there.

“If a person searches for a celebrity on LeapFish, they might find a video on them that they normally wouldn’t have seen,” he said.Behrouzi has helped build more than 20 Internet companies. Besides LeapFish, others include Reply.com and iMotors.

For Behrouzi, being the head of a successful company in the Bay Area is a remarkable story. Especially when he considers the path taken to get there.

Born in Iran, Behrouzi and his family were forced out of the country because of “vicious” religious persecution when he was about 4.

“If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have had much of an opportunity to get higher in my life,” he said. “Life would have been made very difficult for me.”

Smuggled at night, he traveled for several days through the desert to Pakistan.

“We could hear gunshots everywhere,” he said. “It was an ugly period in my life, but we got through it.”

After about a year in Pakistan, they found people they knew from Alaska, and when he was 6, the family came to the United States. Eventually, they came to California and settled in Modesto.

Then, his life changed at about 15, when he was exposed to the Internet.

Instead of paper routes or working for a small business, Behrouzi immediately looked for an opportunity to make money through the Web.

“I just knew that I wanted to start a business that people would want,” he said.

His first Web-based endeavor was an online coupon business he ran from a modem in his bedroom. It was a simple concept where businesses signed up and could put menus, graphics and coupons online.

Often Behrouzi would go to school in a coat and tie so he could set up meetings with businesses during lunch.

“I tried to look as spiffy as I could so I could pull off 17 or 18, even though I was 15 or 16,” he said.

Behrouzi moved to San Ramon his senior year in high school and went to UC Davis, where he started to create companies such as Reply.

“I would start up one company, and then another idea would come up, and I’d start another,” he said. “I enjoyed the sense that I was building things.”

Behrouzi won’t disclose his net worth, but he says he put $2 million of his own money into the launch of DotNext.

Behrouzi realizes his life’s path hasn’t been conventional. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve had my successes and I’ve had my failures, but you need both of those to keep your life in forward motion,” he said. “I guess that’s what makes me a serial entrepreneur.”

Read the full story in Inside Bay Area