HotOrNot Sale: Lesson In How To Have Fun and Make Millions

If Otter and Boon from Animal House had grown up to be dot-com guys in Silicon Valley, they would be James Hong and Jim Young, the founders of HotOrNot -- a dating Web site where users crassly rate people based on their looks. It's the Net equivalent of holding up judge's scoring cards as potential partners walk by in a bar.

Hong and Young started the site just because they thought it would be funny. They got the idea while drinking and talking about a girl they knew. And they just sold it for a reported $20 million to a fairly mysterious Canadian operation called Avid Life Media, which has a home page that goes nowhere.

I've known James for a number of years. I'd be hard-pressed to say that he works hard -- a fact that Hong would celebrate, not dispute. He mostly invests his money or time in projects out of some sort of bizarre personal need or because he wants to back a friend. A year or so ago, he showed me a project called SaveMyAss.com -- a Web site that automatically sends a wife or girlfriend flowers on pre-determined dates, such as a birthday or Valentine's Day. (Guys, you might want to check out the site considering it's now Feb. 12.)

On another occasion, James put money into his friend Dave Samuel's new company set up to sell electronic toilets.

Looking forward to seeing what James and Jim do with their HotOrNot money.

UPDATE: Via e-mail from James:

avid life media is not the acquiring entity, but common shareholders do apply..

it was bought out by a bunch of private investor types who want to grow hot or not.. just as importantly, they are people that brought cash. ;)

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