More than 10 dot-coms have recently sought buyers on the popular auction site. Search engine DigForIt.com sold for $25,400 this month after promising bidders “great revenue potential.” SynapseLife, an online calendar and organizational site, sold for $60,000 despite warning it had “no advertising revenue.”

Corporate acquisitions are usually handled by investment bankers or merger experts. EBay is best known for consumer goods. Still, entrepreneurs are turning there because deals are simple, fast and cheap. “On eBay, you have it closed within a month,” says SynapseLife co-founder Mark Michael.

Jessica Livingston, a venture capitalist with Y Combinator, says she’s hearing it more: “My company’s not taking off. Let’s see if I can make some money on eBay.”

Kiko, a company that received some funding from Y Combinator, seems typical. It is one of dozens of small firms created during the current Internet boom, often called Web 2.0. But the online calendar service floundered after search giant Google launched a competing product.

Founders Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, who had already spent years on the site, wanted to move on. They offered the company’s intellectual property — mainly computer code and rights to the Kiko name — on eBay last year. Software site Tucows was the final bidder, paying $258,100. (Kan and Shear went on to found Web broadcaster JustinTV.)

There’s no way to know how many companies are following Kiko’s lead, since eBay doesn’t have a Web 2.0 category, says spokesman Brad Williams. Most fall into a business category that includes everything from software to hot dog carts.

Livingston says she hopes the trend doesn’t become widespread. The Kiko deal worked well because the founders wanted a fast, simple separation. But most deals require legal paperwork best handled by a professional, she says.

It’s also unclear whether acquiring companies want to buy on eBay. Jim Mansfield, CEO of Web marketing firm Intela, watched the 2006 eBay auction of ad company CrispAds with interest. But he didn’t feel comfortable making a bid without knowing the company better.

The CrispAds auction, with a minimum price of $90,000, ended without a bid. Months later, Mansfield worked with a broker to buy the company for “a few hundred thousand dollars,” he says.

That’s not stopping others. Dale and Brian Beermann recently tried to sell their company, MyOutdoors.net. Instead of putting the company up on eBay, they listed it on two smaller sites, Web 2.0 for Sale and Buy Biz Sell.

Offers came in, but none as good as hoped. Now, the brothers are considering “another go at it,” Dale Beermann says.

Seattle, WA, USA, April 7, 2006 — The Seattle area has historically been a proving ground for technical innovation and development. Being designated as the “Most Wired and Wireless” city in the nation by Popular Science Magazine and many other technical watchdogs, Seattle continues to attract new innovative entrepreneurial firms. Many impressive young and creative companies are taking advantage of what the “Most Wired” city has to offer.

In the last year, a young entrepreneurial company called Synapse Corporate Solutions (www.synapsecs.com) has been quick to establish themselves as a provider of extraordinary interactive web-based applications for small to medium-sized businesses.

Synapse.CS is the brainchild of two young entrepreneurs, Mark A Michael and Daniel L Rust, both in their early twenties. They have been successfully providing web-based services to Washington State businesses for over seven years, long before being inducted into adulthood.

In 1999 they started their first entrepreneurial company called bopLOP.com, a web-based travel industry search package that allowed users to search for vacation and travel packages available on the Internet. This was long before the more popular Internet Search Engine companies provided these travel-related services. Throughout 2000 and 2001 they continued to provide a variety of technical business services consisting of web design, database management, corporate identity branding, and market consulting.

In 2002 they were commissioned by Tropical Travel (www.tropicaltravel.net), a Western Washington travel agency, to redesign their website with a new company image, develop a client database scheme, and market the agency across the continent. The database they designed for Tropical Travel soon evolved into a fully featured web-based software package, the origin of the current Synapse.CS group of applications. Applying this impressive system, the agency was then able to manage multiple Independent Agents around the country, further expanding their revenue potential. With website design, database management, and overall marketing still being managed by the Mark/Daniel team, Tropical Travel has since grown to have over 2.7 million in gross sales in 2005, with expectations for 2006 of over 3.5 to 4.0 million. No longer a home-based business.

“When we originally started working with Tropical Travel they had an active client base of less that 1500,” says Mark Michael. “Since this time, they have been able to manage and expand their customer base to over 28,000 clients as a direct result of the Synapse.CS integration.”

The current Synapse.CS software package consists of a series of web-based applications that can be combined in a variety of variations to meet most any business’ needs. The application modules allow users to manage website content, organize and schedule customer service, manage company events, coordinate sales teams, generate and issue newsletters, access email, produce reports and charts, and a variety of other necessary management activities.

In addition to the basic application modules, Synapse.CS has developed a variety of customized industry-specific applications. Currently these include packages developed for the News/Periodical, Winery, Travel Agency, Product Ecommerce, Service Contract, and independent Educational Industries, with direct development input from industry leaders for each applicable category.

Their future endeavors include a Campaign package for fund raising activities and SynapseLife, a free service open to anyone who needs to store data, images or videos online allowing dynamic data sharing or remote access. This is just the beginning for Synapse.CS intends to be around for a long time.

“We are not venture capital hungry,” says Mark Michael. “We saw and studied what went on during the dot-com era, so we are carefully building our organization from the ground up structuring around a sound business model.” “We started out small and now have 33 active clients and over 84 full time users, and the numbers are growing daily.”

Another point that emphasizes the integrity of this young company - The majority of Synapse.CS customers have come to them through referral from their established satisfied customers. This has allowed them to concentrate on making their product better, and has reduced the need to spend time and effort on their own product marketing.

“We have much the same needs as other client-based businesses,” says Daniel Rust, “so we use our own software products to manage our clients, modify our websites, and otherwise organize our operations.” “Combined with active customer feedback, we are able to ensure our products evolve in support of our customers needs, and as new business trends emerge we can blend in the best elements to better our products.”

With this type of drive and vitality, it is obvious why this innovative web-based software company has established itself so quickly in the Seattle business environment.

See what Synapse.CS can do to help your business prosper. Visit their website at www.synapsecs.com to learn more about their exciting web-based solutions, or contact Mark A Michael or Daniel L Rust directly by phone at (206) 441-4399

For Further Study
Synapse Corporate Solutions (www.synapsecs.com)
Arestia Design Studios (www.arestia.com)
Connected Citizenry - Seattle; The Most Wired (and Wireless) City in the Nation
Popular Science Website (www.popsci.com)
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/generaltechnology/d0b79aa138b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Seattle - Free WiFi Service Update
City of Seattle Website (www.seattle.gov)
http://www.seattle.gov/html/citizen/wifi.htm
Seattle - Community Wireless Network (CWN)
Seattle Wireless (http://www.seattlewireless.net)

About Synapse Corporate Solutions, LLC:
Synapse Corporate Solutions, LLC (Synapse.CS) is a web-based software company located in the 4th and Vine building in Seattle’s Belltown District. Originally incorporated in Eastern Washington, it moved its operations to Seattle in 2004, an area with a better business infrastructure for supporting their creative vision.

Synapse Corporate Solutions has decided to sell off its productivity suite, SynapseLife, by putting it up on eBay yesterday. It therefore enters the TechCrunch Deadpool of dead or dying companies.The auction has started at $50,000. The eBay auction has become a cheap way for small companies to make an exit or sell of their lagging technology (see Kiko and Zookoda). SynapseLife has had a tough time, being sandwiched between more robust productivity management applications like Zimbra, Scrybe, and even the hipper Goowy.

Co-founder Daniel Rust says the sell off is so they can move away from the competitive corporate solutions market and focus on their Down2Night nightlife SMS alert product. Down2Night alerts users to special events and deals happening at venues in their area (currently only for San Francisco and Seattle).

The company’s team of 4, along with some sub-contractors, has been working on SynapseLife since last July. The value of the sale will mostly be attributed to the application’s technology, but the service has also attracted 4,500 users.