At that point, Mediabistro was still a hobby, and Touby was supporting herself by freelance writing. In mid-1999, she began asking people who posted job ads on her site to send $100 per listing to a post office box. She received $2,200 the first month -- not bad, she told herself.
Two months later, she collected more than $3,800. By the end of 1999 she had taken in more than $65,000 -- nearly twice her earnings as a writer. "That's when I realized that I'd better invest in this baby," says Touby, 45.
So she tapped contacts to help her write a business plan and find investors. By 2000, she had lined up $1 million commitments from two investors in exchange for an ownership share. Mediabistro managed to weather the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the stock market's nose dive and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Frugal with her investors' money, Touby created a new revenue source by offering online classes and seminars for a fee.
Last year, Jupitermedia bought Mediabistro -- and its robust online traffic of 7 million page views a month -- for $23 million. Touby's personal share is $12 million before taxes -- and more if future financial goals are met.
She and her husband, journalist Jon Fine, continue to live in their Brooklyn apartment while searching for a loft in Manhattan. "After getting this huge amount of money," she says, "we want to be careful not to lose it."
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