Ahnil Rathi '97, a veteran of three start-ups at age 26.

It was only six in the morning when Anil Rathi '97 left the United Arab Emirates last October, but the mercury had already topped a hundred degrees. He was worn and exhausted, but not because of the time or the oven of a wool suit he was wearing or the stacks of slides and business plans he carried. Rather, it was what he didn't have that was weighing him down — the big check he'd come so far and fought so hard to gain.

Rathi and Pankaj Kumar, one of his partners in the software firm zSyndicate, had arrived in Dubayy a week earlier to take part in the Internet City E-Biz Challenge, an online company's version of the TV reality show "Survivor." And zSyndicate had, in the very last round, been voted off the island.

"I couldn't believe it," Rathi says. "I was shocked — so much hard work, and for nothing." Although meeting other entrepreneurs and investors helped broaden his experience, he felt that zSyndicate's product didn't get a fair shake. "We should have won. What our software could do — it was so much greater than what the others' could. Every business there could have benefited from using our product."

Rathi's company had entered into the E-Biz Challenge almost on a lark. He and his partners had heard of the contest only a few days before its deadline, and they'd never considered such an adventure in their corporate strategy. But the contest's organizers had offered to pay all expenses, so it seemed like a good way to get free advice. Also, the top three companies would each receive $150,000; zSyndicate needed the money.

"We saw a chance to make a quick $150,000, and we took it," says Rathi. "It's tough raising capital right now."

And so they sent off their application. They made the first round of cuts — from 1,385 applicants to twenty-three semifinalists — and Rathi and Kumar flew to Dubayy, where a grueling schedule awaited. They had to pitch their business plan fifteen times in seven days, altering it after each presentation, even though that meant speeding back and forth through the hot, crowded streets to their hotel room on the far side of town. They slept less than four hours a night, surviving on caffeine and confidence.

"After the first day, zSyndicate was the buzzword among all the contestants and judges," says Rathi. "One of the organizers pulled us aside privately to tell us we'd done a good job, and potential investors were seeking us out to ask for follow-up meetings. I told Pankaj that I thought we were going to win."

But when the news came down two hours after the final presentation, Rathi learned that zSyndicate had received the dubious honor of fourth place: the best a company could do without actually taking home any money.

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