As he nurtures two startup businesses out of his home office in Topanga Canyon, the 30-year-old entrepreneur is a little savvier and a good deal richer these days than when he got into the Internet game in 1995.

His latest ventures are prmtv, a boutique Web design company, and Kropp Medical Data Systems, a software company that has created an application to simplify medical payment records.

He got married last fall and calls the current time in his life "a recovery period." Not because he is burned out or embittered, he says, but rather because he's enjoyed plotting his next move from the comfort of the home he shares with his wife, Karen Rosenquist, and an Akita-chow mix named Rocky.I'm ready to get out and start interacting, doing some other things," he says.

Kropp's experience reflects that of countless Internet pioneers, who rode the wave, took their lumps, and now, for better or worse, must move on -- whether in another startup or an established business. "It was a painful process for a lot of people in this space. The demise took the wind out of a lot of people's sails when their expectations weren't met," says Rosenquist, who met Kropp when they were both at US Web.

Kropp actually started out with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at UCLA and was en route to a Ph.D. -- even though he was not much interested in the field. Computers, a fascination since he started doing rudimentary programming when he was a kid in Marin County, "seemed too nerdy," he now says.There was Internet development before that, but business was slow," Kropp says. "In 1996, companies were saying, 'OK, we've seen the Netscape IPO, we've got to do something.' It was really easy to drum up business."

Early success

Lot 11 was the classic garage startup. "Through a friend of a friend we did a Web site for a company and they gave us 150 square feet of office space in their offices on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. It was three desks jammed into this tiny room. But it was free, so it was great," he says.

Lot 11 quickly lined up several jobs with then-L.A. Times parent Times Mirror Co., thanks to connections of the other partners, all of whom had worked for the company.

"They kept hiring us back. The first job was about $2,000, the second job was $15,000 and the third job was like $80,000. That was it, we had a business," Kropp says. Soon, Lot 11 rented an old craftsman house near the sand in Hermosa Beach, where it landed clients like Northrop Grumman Corp. and Walt Disney Co.

Kropp took the title of chief executive, which was a good fit, according to Andrew Inesi, a one-time lawyer for Stamps.com who was a partner with Kropp on a later venture.

"Matt is the kind of guy who can quickly become an expert at anything," Inesi says. "A lot of people can talk the talk, but they don't know the nitty-gritty of what's going on. He has the technical understanding and the people skills that are really necessary for being successful."

By the end of the first year, there were 10 people on staff.

In 1997, Kropp got a call from a friend who ran another Web development company asking if Lot 11 would be interested in selling out to USWeb, the now defunct Web development and consulting firm that was one of the more aggressive players during the mid-to-late 1990s.

"My first reaction was no way. We knew about USWeb, all the small shops did," Kropp says. "They were trying to franchise. We had heard that they were the Kinko's of Web development."

Earlier, USWeb had approached Lot 11 with a pitch that involved the smaller company paying USWeb $50,000 and a share of revenues in exchange for the right "to slap the USWeb logo on their door' Kropp says.

This time, however, Lot 11 was a successful business. USWeb upped its offer: salaried jobs and 200,000 shares of the then--private company. Kropp and his partners thought USWeb would go public at $12.50 a share, valuing their deal at $2.5 million, and they bit.

Shares hit the public market in December 1997 at $7.50 - and then doubled within a week. Soon, USWeb was trading at $20, and within a few months the company, which eventually changed its name to MarchFirst, was trading at nearly $50 a share.