No matter how hard Dave Alberga trained, he'd routinely be "thrown a beating" whenever he entered a mountain biking race.
Frustrated, the CEO of Active Network, who at the time in the 1990s was working at a technology company, asked a friend what to do. His friend's advice? "Give up."
That wasn't exactly what Alberga, a 48-year-old graduate from West Point and Stanford, had in mind. Alberga had tried to balance his passion for competitive sports like biking with his desire to succeed at business. But Alberga's friend told him he wasn't wired to multitask and do both and should focus on one thing that combined his love of sports and business.
The chance came in 1999, when Alberga got a call from a venture-capital firm looking for an executive to head up a small but fast-growing business that processed athletic competition registrations. Alberga knew this was exactly the kind of company that could blend his interests in athletics and online commerce. "This is the closest ever to get, as I can't be a professional athlete," to integrate sports in his life and career, he says.
Growing Fast
Now Alberga and Active Network are turning into small-business winners. Just 12 years after being founded, Active Network is the fast-growing leader in the push to take registrations of mainly outdoor events online. The San Diego-based company, which generated revenue of $289 million over the past year, launched an initial public offering last week and now has a market value of $180 million.
Active Network also has some big-time corporate backers: Walt Disney's ESPN and Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive own stakes.
The company is best known for providing the electronic back-office systems used by race organizers to allow competitors to sign up, pay and receive updates on competitions ranging from 5k's and 10k's to marathons and other endurance sports. Active Network handles the registrations of some of the nation's best-known races, including the Marine Corps Marathon, the Chicago Marathon and San Francisco's Bay to Breakers race.
Organizers say Active Network is the answer to their nightmare situations of receiving thousands of crumpled registrations forms, loose checks and wads of cash and trying to keep track of it all.
The Bay to Breakers race has used Active.com for more than 10 years. The latest race, completed in May, sold out its registration with more than 55,000 registrants, says race organizer Angela Fang. Using Active.com allowed her to process the thousands of payments, something that would have been much more costly and cumbersome to deal with otherwise, she says. While the race added a $5 service fee for the Active service, runners appreciate the convenience and think the charge is reasonable.
