Escaping Death Valley

Paul Clinton

A survivor of the instant-millionaire dot-com era is relaunching

itself locally after retreating from an office on the outskirts of

Silicon Valley.

Loominate, a company that provides streaming audio-video services,

set up shop in October at a Superior Avenue office, which is about

half the size of their previous space. Orange County’s economy was

much more appealing, CEO Ryan Anderson said.

“I’ve heard it called Death Valley, not Silicon Valley,” Anderson

said. “We had seen the amazing growth and vitality of the Orange

County market.”

Anderson and two other partners relaunched Loominate last year.

The company, which morphed from a consulting firm known as

Synernetix, now specializes in developing programs for visual

presentations.

Loominate develops what are known as “micro sites,” aesthetically

spare Web sites that provide specific information about product or

service.

Anderson and his team of between six and 10 employees use existing

software to develop programs that contain these visual presentations.

Loominate is working to sign a deal with a medical-device company

that manufactures a cardiac machine that’s too bulky to carry to

client meetings.

Loominate’s services, which can be tailored to customers’ needs,

cost a company between $5,000 and $100,000, depending on how in-depth

the presentation.

The company is zeroing in on the Southern California market, so

the Costa Mesa location makes sense, Anderson said.

The company’s main competitors in this market are Sawyer Media

Systems and Eveo Inc.

Anderson, whose family owned a Newport Beach summer house,

graduated from UC Riverside with a business degree. He co-founded

start-up Omnibility in 1999 before joining McAfee Security, the

Network Associates division that sells anti-virus software.

Anderson, 32, left the company in 2001 to form Synernetix. He now

lives in Rancho Santa Margerita.