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During Paul Berrettini's senior year at the University of Notre Dame, he expected to follow most of his classmates on the well-worn path into the corporate world, land a good job with a big company and live happily ever after.
That is, until two professors intervened.
"They asked, 'Why do you want to work for a big company when you've got a lot of interest in the Internet and designing Web pages? There seems like there's going to be a market for it,"' the 1996 Notre Dame graduate recalls.
"I would have never really thought differently about the issue. I would have done what everybody else was doing, what seemed like the right thing to do."
But in early 1996, a network of people at Notre Dame and in the community met on Saturday mornings to discuss burgeoning technology issues. Berrettini was one of the few students invited.
"It got me thinking there was a niche we could fill," he says. "Both professors convinced me to start a company. I said, 'I would if you guys would be my partners."'
They agreed and Berrettini started Shamrock Net Design from his dorm room in January 1996, designing Web sites for university departments. Notre Dame marketing professors Bob Drevs and the late Brian Aikins; served as partner consultants. Drevs, Akins and Berrettini each invested $100 to get the business off the ground.
"Ninety-seven dollars went to the State of Indiana to file corporate papers, $100 was used for envelopes and business cards, maybe the rest was used for disks," Berrettini recalls with...