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Even in the rubble left over from the dot-com bubble bursting at the start of the decade, there were the obvious victories: Google, Amazon, Yahoo! and eBay.

Then there were the more far-reaching developments beyond those Web-based behemoths. During the years when the ability of dot-commers to make money was rivaled only by their ability to lose it, infrastructure was being put in place for the next generation of Internet companies. Bandwidth capabilities were increased, and the costs associated with Web sites were reduced to where not having one became the exception instead of the rule.

The advances in technology and Web infrastructure might be the most noticeable tools the dot-commers left behind, but they aren’t necessarily the most important. There are, after all, the extraordinary flameouts that nobody really cares to repeat.

Don Morgan, president and CEO of Go Kahuna, is part of the newer breed of Web-based entrepreneurs. His Baton Rouge company provides third-party verification of the qualification, licensing and insurance status of construction subcontractors across the country.

Morgan, 59, was working in the aerospace industry in the early 1990s when the dot-com boom was starting, and he watched as it burst. Now he and others are looking to the lessons of the past to steer them toward controlled growth and long-term viability.

“You learn from history no matter what kind of business it is,” Morgan says. “Failure is an integral part of success if you learn from those failures.”

By the time the dot-com bubble burst, Eddie Ashworth, president of the Louisiana Technology Park, was a grizzled veteran of such occurrences. He moved to Lafayette in 1984 to get into the oil exploration business, which at the time was the sexy business venture du jour.

Back then, projects barely reached the drawing board (often in the literal sense) before companies came in looking to make a purchase. Things were looking great for lots of people until the price per barrel of oil dropped about $28 to about $10.

And that, says Ashworth, is the nature of the bubble. People who get in and out at the right time make a nice living. Others, often late arriving and less sophisticated, don’t fare so well.

Those who are involved in or closely monitoring a booming and, subsequently, busting industry don’t necessarily come away wiser. The failings don’t lead to a new, more conservative business philosophy. “I don’t think that lesson ever gets learned,” Ashworth says.

Instead, the attention turns to locating the next undervalued market. That undervalued market is located and, in turn, valued, overvalued and then blown up. And the cycle continues—the oil boom/bust begat the dot-com boom/bust begat the real estate boom/bust.

“It rolls to different industries,” Ashworth says. “It’ll be a long time before you have that sort of bubbling in the dot-com industry again.”

The weaknesses in the dot-com market that led to its crash now are being avoided. Sometimes, those moves are smart business decisions by the entrepreneur; other times they are adjustments the market makes to the bust.

One example of the latter is with venture capital, a mainstay of the dot-com boom. Today, Ashworth says, investment money comes into play much later in the process of business planning and implementation. Before, it took little more than an idea to find yourself with large amounts of someone else’s money.

“Everyone was interested in technology and new ideas,” Morgan says. “There were a lot of venture capital folks throwing money at any project that sounded promising."

Neal Fuller, CEO of voterVOICE, had the opportunity to acquire venture capital when he launched his company in 2000. The process never went past informal discussions before Fuller decided to invest his own capital. “It didn’t happen, and now I’m seven years into it,” says Fuller. “I’m happy I didn’t take it.”

Morgan and the three other investors in Go Kahuna went into the project intending to use their own money as well. Both Morgan and Fuller possess more conservative business outlooks that are the hallmark of the new Internet entrepreneurs, with a focus on existing customers and carefully developed growth. Even now that his business model has proven to be effective, Morgan is making sure the company paces itself. “The temptation is there,” Morgan says, “but extraordinarily fast growth can kill you as fast as no growth."

Fuller is hyperaware of the size of his customer base, largely because of his limited market from which to draw. His company provides a communications platform for trade organizations with political interests to communicate with their members and for the members to communicate with elected officials. He measures his potential client base in thousands.

Any unhappy customer has the ability to put a dent in the future business of voterVOICE, so Fuller made several decisions about how to offer his product. The company would be upfront with pricing with no back-end charges. The only charge would be for the platform and software, and voterVOICE would be willing to do whatever it took to keep all service aspects of the business, including training, free. “I wanted to make sure customers happy,” Fuller says. “They’re who we’re going to get our marketing power from.”

While Internet entrepreneurs must recognize the vast potential the Web offers to their companies, they must also remember the business principles all companies must follow. “If you have a good product or service you can offer at a reasonable price,” Morgan says, “you will always be successful.”