LinkExchange

It was founded in March 1996 by 23-year-old Harvard graduates Tony Hsieh (who later went on to invest in and become the CEO of Zappos) and Sanjay Madan.

[2] Alfred Lin dropped out of his Stanford PhD program to join as CFO.

[3] In November 1996, when the company consisted of about 10 people, it moved from Hsieh's and Madan's living room to an office[4] in San Francisco.

In May 1997, the company received US$3 million in funding from Sequoia Capital.

[5] In June 1998, LinkExchange acquired MerchantPlanet, an early shopping cart and credit card application.