ASK MOST PEOPLE if they know of a dotcom success story and they will laugh out loud.
Unless, of course, they were investors, in which case they may burst into tears.
But among the broken dreams, lost fortunes and ruined careers there are dotcoms that survived the meltdown of the Internet economy without incinerating the bank accounts of their beleaguered investors. Contrary to popular belief, more than a few people are making money online in Hong Kong.
Ironically, the dotcoms still around are not always the ones that shot up as new economy stars in a blaze of media attention. Many are small, relatively modest operations that found a niche and worked hard at mastering it.
Take William Chow's company for example. An entrepreneur who ran restaurants on the mainland, Mr Chow decided two years ago to sell traditional Chinese soup in Hong Kong. Faced with the challenge of how to advertise and sell his product, he turned to the Internet and created chinesesoup.com.
'We decided to sell soup first and then decided to use the Internet to promote our product and do sales afterwards. I think that is why we have been successful. We really are a very traditional business.' he said.
From his small, storefront kitchen in Sheung Wan, Mr Chow ships 1,000 silver flasks filled with hot soup to offices around Hong Kong every day, creating revenue in excess of HK$200,000 a week. It is not a king's ransom, but Mr Chow said the company turned a profit. It has also done what few others have managed by successfully conducting sales online in Hong Kong.