The Outsider 87
They never expected to make a large sum of money
from this Internet venture. Elon wanted to make enough
money to support himself since he had only $2 000 in the
bank account. He also owned a car and a computer.^71 From
his studies at the university, Elon accumulated a large sum
of student loan he now needed to pay back together with
interest on the loan.
Because they had so little money, their goal was to
make money as early as possible. They decided to target the
media industry because they believed the media industry
had the money they needed to survive. Zip2 would help the
media industry to convert their content in print to online
content.
The first thing Zip2 did was to contact the company
Navteq, which was founded by another South African
immigrant. Navteq produced digital maps used in various
navigation applications, such as GPS navigators. Elon per-
suaded them to let Zip2 put their maps on the Internet.
Then he purchased a business directory for a few hundred
dollars. Elon linked the business directory to the map with
a software he developed himself.^71 “I still had my core
programming skills, so I was able to write the software,”
he said.^327
As they continued to develop their product, they branched
out to more areas than was covered by the original business
idea. Visitors to Zip2 could look up a movie, and then find
a restaurant or nightclub in the same neighborhood. The
Zip2 software could also give visitors door-to-door driving
directions. “It [Zip2] did a bunch of things,” Elon said.