The versatile investor with a buzzy non-profit
Send-A-Song is the ‘trunk of an entrepreneurial tree’ that has created hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of economic value in the D.C. area over the past 25 years
IT’S THAT rare Washington business that has served as a spawning ground for other companies and entrepreneurs. America Online, MCI Communications and the Carlyle Group quickly come to mind. You could probably throw LivingSocial in there as well.
Washington entrepreneur Dan Price and his partner and brother, Tim, did their part two decades ago with their funky, failing little baby called Send-ASong, one of the early pioneers in interactive phone dialing.
The original idea was to deliver tunes like Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You” by telephone to a special someone on Valentine’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
Instead of folding SendA-Song’s tent after getting gobsmacked by recording industry lawsuits, the brothers turned it into Price Interactive. The business revolved around the robotic voice that answers the phone to instruct you which number to press to check your flight status, get a retirement fund balance or to (god forbid) cancel your newspaper.
“Send-A-Song is the ‘trunk of an entrepreneurial tree’ that has created hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of economic value in the D.C. area over the past 25 years,” Dan Price said. In addition to Price Interactive, Send-A-Song’s offspring include Contact Solutions, Helios HR (a major local human resources consulting firm founded by Kathy Albarado, a former senior player at Price) and Xtone, which holds patents on voice technology.
Send-A-Song also spawned a small fortune and allowed Dan a graduate of Harvard Business School and accomplished accountant - to pursue his commitment to investing and, get this, beekeeping.
The Price brothers sold Price Interactive in 2001 for more than US$100 million, including US$50 million in cash. I estimate that after they split the proceeds with fellow investors, the brothers each walked away with doubledigit millions.
Price used his fortune to become a gentleman farmer. He bought the 14-acre farm an hour west of Washington in Prince William County, Virginia, for US$1 million in 2002.
He had spied it from a nearby golf course. Price knocked on the door and asked the owner if he was willing to sell. He owned a farm a few months later.
The honey from his beekeeping helps fuel his Sweet Virginia Foundation, a non-profit founded in 2008.
The foundation each year sells about 500 10-ounce jars of honey, packaged in sleek, custom wood boxes. Customers pay US$100 (RM450) a bottle for the liquid gold. Price said so far the foundation has sent around US$100,000 to various charities, including Camp Sunshine in Maine.
Children with life-threatening diseases and their families use the camp for recreation and support.
“The idea was to make some good for the world come out of this very special farm,” the former accountant said.
The farm is a menagerie. Thousands of dazzling, yellow sunflowers carpet the grounds down to a 900-acre lake.
A birdhouse hotel buzzes with Purple Martins from Brazil. The Purples fly up from the Amazon so they can take advantage of the long Northern Hemisphere daylight to feast on bugs.
“You come out one day in August, and they are gone. Just like that,” Price said.