Boo.com was a short-lived British eCommerce business, founded in 1998 by Swedes Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin, who were regarded as sophisticated Internet entrepreneurs in Europe by the investors because they had created an online bookstore named Bokus.com, the third largest book e-retailer (in 1997), before founding boo.com. After several highly publicized delays, Boo.com launched in the autumn of 1999 selling branded fashion apparel over the Internet. The company spent $135 million of venture capital in just 18 months, and it was placed into receivership on 18 May 2000 and liquidated. In June 2008, CNET hailed Boo.com as one of the greatest dot-com busts in history. Ernst Malmsten wrote about the experience in a book called Boo Hoo: A dot.com Story from Concept to Catastrophe, published in 2001. Marketing plan Company vision Boo.com was intended to become the largest online sports e-retailer in the world, planning to set up stores in both Europe and America simultaneously. Brand name The brand name was initially suggested as Bo.com, which was inspired by the actress Bo Derek. The final domain name, Boo.com, was bought for $2500 from a dealer as the domain Bo.com was already in use. Strategy The target customers of Boo.com were young, wealthy and fashionable people between 18 and 24 years old, who were expected to be attracted by sports and fashion brands offered by Boo.com. Boo.com created a virtual shopping assistant, Miss Boo, to assist customers with tips given at each step. Boo.com also developed technology that allowed online customers to put their chosen products onto 3D models and then inspect the result. Headquarters and relaunch The company had its headquarters along Carnaby Street in London in a building which it initially shared with the Erotic Review Magazine. The company initially had 40 employees. In October 1999, it had a total of eight offices and 400 employees in Amsterdam, Munich, New York City, Paris, and Stockholm. It relaunched in the autumn of 2000 with Kate Buggeln, an ex-Bloomingdale's salesperson and Internet consultant, appointed as president. She told Women's Wear Daily that they were working to "expand beyond the portal business model into Boo products and Boo licensing." Reasons for failure Timing Although there were several months of delays prior to launch and problems with the user experience when boo.com first launched, these had been largely fixed by the time the company entered receivership. Sales had grown rapidly