About AlumBiz.com

How Alumbiz.com came to be.

AlumBiz.com founder Jim Bastone is an avid fan of business news, business history, and stories of how entrepreneurs and business owners got started and built their companies. He spends hours reading magazines, business web sites, and the "About Us" section of many different websites. He also reads his alumni magazine and newsletter religiously (he is a Dartmouth grad) looking for stories about fellow grads and classmates and what they are doing with their careers. While brainstorming ideas for his next business venture, he thought to himself there should be a centralized place where alums can let their fellow alums know about their businesses. This would be a boon to the business owners as well as people, like Jim, who are interested in supporting fellow alums in their business endeavors

Of course, some of this information is already available through alumni associations and school websites, but quite often you need to be a graduate of a particular school (or even a member of a specific graduating class) to gain access. Jim thought that this was too restrictiv. In almost every bio of business founders and management teams that he read, the individuals being described mentioned the schools from which they had graduated and the degrees they had earned. Clearly, these people were proud of their alma maters and wished the world to know.

Then the idea struck him: Why not let business owners let the whole world know where they went to school, thereby giving them access not only to fellow classmates or alums, but to anyone who may be interested? Why not let alums know that a business they might be thinking of patronizing is owned by a fellow alum? Why not let business people who were looking to do more business know that a fellow alum is in a position to help them? Thus, AlumBiz.com was born.

AlumBiz.com today and in the future...

Today AlumBiz.com is the web's premier site for 1) advertising your business to fellow alums, 2) seeking businesses owned by fellow alums, and 3) networking with fellow alums, or anyone else for that matter! This is just the start for AlumBiz.com. We will continue to add new features to make doing business easier, and to let you know more about the people behind the businesses you use.

Meet the founder.

James Bastone

James Bastone is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AlumBiz.com. Before creating AlumBiz.com, Jim managed and co-founded two very successful companies in the wholesale and manufacturing industries from 1992 to 2005. After selling his interest in the second of these companies, Jim took some time off to get married to his wife Kimber and to ponder his next business venture. A desire for change led him back to the locale of his college days in New Hampshire. There he spotted a small business for sale, Littleton Grist Mill, which produced organic flours and mixes in an 18^th Century mill on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River. Jim's on-going interest in business news and his proximity to his alma mater began the idea for AlumBiz percolating in his head. He also worked from 1989 to 1990 as a financial analyst in investment banking at Merrill Lynch. Jim holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Dartmouth College.