ThinkTank

About ThinkTank

In the dot-com gold rush of the late 90s, some founders struck it rich once. Scott Blum, the fiery founder of Buy.com, decided to build a factory. After creating the fastest-growing company in U.S. history, Blum wasn't done. In 1999, he launched his next venture: ThinkTank. It wasn't just another startup; it was an incubator designed to systematically churn out the next wave of internet giants. Blum, a former national champion swimmer and serial entrepreneur, put up $40 million of his own money to get it started. The playbook was simple. ThinkTank would dream up its own business ideas, build them out, and provide all the necessary support to turn them into standalone enterprises. This wasn't a passive investment fund; it was a hands-on production line for dot-coms. The concept was so potent that it attracted the biggest name in tech investing at the time. In October 1999, it was announced that Japanese giant Softbank would pour an astronomical $200 million into the venture, a massive validation of Blum's vision. However, the story took a sharp turn. Blum, who valued control, later stated he turned down Softbank’s capital to finance ThinkTank entirely himself. For two years, the incubator launched companies like Enfrastructure and InternetMotors. But the market was changing, and Blum's attention was drawn back to his first creation. In 2001, he paused operations at ThinkTank to focus on a new, audacious goal: buying back and turning around the now-public and struggling Buy.com. ThinkTank remained a testament to the colossal ambition of the era, an attempt to industrialize innovation itself.