Milktruck is now dead. Long live the bottle guy.
Milktruck began in Dan and Kris' 2 bedroom condo in Sunnyvale. Dan and You
Mon, whom I both worked with at Brio, took the startup plunge and began work
on an offline web browsing utility, which was dubbed Milktruck Delivery. The
milk bottle guy was the mascot, though the unofficial office mascot was Robbie,
Dan and Kris' fluffy kitty. I joined Milktruck in February of 1996, which prompted
the takeover of the dining room as well. Soon after, we were purchased by Traveling
Software, and the cute Milktruck logo was retired and replaced by a more business
oriented image. We moved to a real office in San Mateo, the product was renamed
WebEx and we shipped 1.0 and 2.0 to critical acclaim, which unfortunately didn't
translate into huge sales. Dealing with a parent company up near Seattle was
a learning experience for us all, and we made the most of what they gave us
for the next year. Our office was shut down in June of 1997. But I had my true
startup experience, a few months without a salary, experience playing receptionist
and answering the phone while in the middle of a coding frenzy, and a Silicon
Valley story to share. Though I spent most of my tenure there as an employee
of Traveling Software working on WebEx, as time goes on, what I remember most
fondly is the cartoon image of the milk bottle and the time we spent in the
condo, learning C++ with a cat basking in the sun nearby.
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