Boomerang Effect: Company founders buy back labors of love

Soon-Chart Yu didn't have much choice last summer when the financial backers of his health site, Gazoontite.com, told him he had to step aside for a more seasoned CEO. "Boy it was hard to let go," said Yu, who acknowledges that he's more of an "idea guy" and went along with the move. "It was you who built the company from scratch. It was you stocking the shelves, sweeping the floors and connecting with customers when they came in. Walking away was not an easy thing to do." It turns out Yu was walking in circles. Less than a year after stepping down, Yu stepped right back up, snatching up most of Gazoontite's assets in bankruptcy court for an undisclosed amount. Now he and his new partners are running Gazoontite again, including five brick-and-mortar stores. Several other company founders who stepped aside or sold their companies have made the same move, rescuing their brainchilds from an increasingly crowded e-commerce dustbin. Despite a shaky economy and particularly tough times for e-commerce, these original upstarts who created the companies all believed in them, even after they passed through someone else's hands. Many analysts agree that lots of good companies got swept up with the bad in the past year's dot-com purge. Sick of seeing Web companies burn cash, backers have walked away from the sector and taken their money with them. Companies that may have survived--had they received the funding that would have allowed them to mature-- have run out of cash and perished along with the rest.