Reunion website in $3m sale
Louise Milligan
JUNE 21, 2004  
 
TWO Sydney twenty-somethings cashed in on curiosity over the weekend when their school reunion website sold to a British company for a sum reputed to be almost $3 million.

Rob Barron, 27, and sister Vicki Dawson, a 29-year-old mother of two, sold their www.schoolfriends.com.au to British competitor Friends Reunited for what industry experts estimate was at least £1 million ($2.7 million). 
Established in October 2000 as "pretty much a hobby" when Mr Barron was living with Ms Dawson and her husband, Trevor, schoolfriends now has more than 1 million members in Australia and New Zealand. 

British husband-and-wife team Steve and Julie Pankhurst of Friends Reunited bought the company from the Dawsons and Mr Barron, but will allow them to continue to run the company. 

Mr Barron, a computer programmer, was just 24 when he approached his sister, who was working at direct marketing company Amway, with the idea he had seen in the US. 


The site reunites school friends, and similar ideas overseas have reputedly led to marriage break-ups and illicit love affairs. "We haven't heard of anything like that here - the main thing is people finding their old loves," Ms Dawson said. 

"Anyway, it's just a service - people can use it any way they like," her brother diplomatically added. 

At first, the company operated out of the study of the family's modest outer-suburban brick home in Stanhope Gardens in Sydney's northwest. 

"It was pretty quiet until about February 2001," Mr Barron said. 

But then a Melbourne newspaper wrote a story about the site and it took off in a big way. 

"It was just crazy - we had 100,000 people signing up a month at one stage," Mr Barron said. 

It eventually expanded to South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, as well as Britain and Ireland. 

The site derives 98 per cent of its income from member subscriptions and is run as a family business, with the siblings' mother looking after customer service and Trevor a company director. 

Ms Dawson said running an internet company from home was ideal for a young mother. 

Daughter Crystal is now 7 1/2 years old and son James is seven months. 

She said the key to the success of schoolfriends was the same formula thart coaxed people to high school reunions - wondering what path your alumni took and whether they were more successful than you. 

"It's definitely curiosity - you know, 'what's so and so up to? Have they realised all their dreams?'," she said. 

The pair's advice to budding dotcom millionaires is "be prepared to put in a lot of hard work and long hours". 

"Oh, and make sure you have a good accountant."