The dot.commers are back, but things are different this time round. Gone are the extravagant launch parties, million pound websites and wild expense accounts, and the head hunters are not rubbing their hands. Today�s online entrepreneurs don�t criss-cross the Atlantic to meet investors, or claim to be inventing the new economy. It seems they are just quietly getting on with growing their businesses.

Typical of the new e-generation is The World Chico (www.worldchico.com), and co-founders Ken Mizutani and Chay Chahal are comfortable with the lower profile and more realistic business environment. �It�s nice to be small� says Ken, �and if we do get bigger it will happen slowly.� An e-commerce venture launched at the beginning of 2004, The World Chico�s proposition is a simple one � selling by mail order well designed, witty and stylish T-shirts based around a football theme.

There is no business re-imagineering here, and Chay can explain the concept in a couple of sentences. �Football and fashion are something that we, and a lot of people, enjoy, but there is little other than replica shirts on the market. These are the opposite of good fashion what is all about � they are corporate, too safe, and lack a sense of individuality or design. Our shirts aim to meet this gap, and offer high quality, fairly priced fashion products to football fans.�

The World Chico co-founders Chay Chahal and Ken Mizutani
Photograph: Ingrid Karikari

Ken and Chay bring a DIY, almost punk, sensibility to entrepreneurship. �We�ve got computers and we�re not afraid to use them,� says Ken. But there is more to this venture than enthusiasm. Ken has a background in product design, which he has applied to both the shirt designs and the website. Chay has spent the last eight years working in marketing and communications within the financial services sector.

The web was the ideal medium for them. Essentially a boutique business, a physical store would never provide them the required customer base. But the web gives them access to a potentially international audience, with a flow of customers in sufficient numbers to provide the sales revenues they need for a sustainable business.

Despite Chay�s contacts in the financial sector, the pair were never interested in external funding. They established the business after making some money from music projects, and decided to invest it into their own business. �We wanted to build a business rather than explode one,� says Chay. �The lack of readily-available finance sharpens your approach, and you have to work within the discipline of spending your own money.�

Working within a tight budget, The World Chico refused to squander money on their website. They felt sufficiently confident in their own new media expertise to avoid going down the agency route, and instead worked with two freelancers whom they found through NMK. According to Ken, �There is some great creative and technical talent out there, and unlike a few years ago, you don�t have to bankrupt your company to work with them.�

Both Ken and Chay feel close to their market themselves, and have a strong intuition of what their customers want. As Chay says, �We are complex consumers. We like music, fashion, football, good food, modern fiction and trashy films. We move freely between high and low culture � the traditional categories of advertiser and media buyers just don�t apply.� Although they have tentatively explored above the line, and placed a small number of print advertisements, their marketing strategy is principally viral. They have used email to great effect, and exploited the power of networks and online communities to get their brand out.

Ken and Chay may not want �20 million of VC investment, or to become paper millionaires overnight, but no one should doubt their ambition. The World Chico gave them a tongue-in-cheek Latin character to base their brand around, but it originates from the film Scarface � �I want the world Chico, and everything in it.� They may not all get the world, but unlike the boomers of 2000, Ken and Chay and the new dot.com entrepreneurs may actually realise some of their ambitions.