SAN FRANCISO - Steve Perlman could be called a "serial entrepreneur" by some in Silicon Valley.
But after enduring the ups and downs of three start-up companies - including a big hit with WebTV Networks - Perlman Is now using his knowledge to help out other would-be Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and digital artists.
Perlman, who co-founded WebTV Networks in 1995 and sold it two year later to Microsoft for $425 million, has started an incubator called Rearden Steel, where both start-up companies and digital artists can set up shop and have access to office space, administrative services, and costly tools to create digital content.
The incubator is a 3,800-square-foot sleek industrial space in San Francisco's South of Market district, which will eventually house four or five start-up companies or projects, providing space, phones, net connections, and many other tools that sometimes take entrepreneurs many months to obtain.
Rearden Steel start-ups and nonprofit artistic efforts can be fully operational in 24 hours with the infrastructure that the incubator provides.
The incubator will also offer digital production such as digital video studio and editing, digital photography studio and editing, 3-D motion capture, and other production capabilities.
One of the cooler toys in the Rearden Steel facilities that was demonstrated at the company's launch party last weekend is a 3-D printer. The printer scans an image and lays down, sheet by sheet, a 3-D replica of the image made of a starch and cellulose powder, which can be used for product prototypes.
Perlman said he also plans to provide seed funding to help companies get started, hoping to ease the burden of many entrepreneurs, as they try to find financing for a new company and turn their ideas into working products.
"A friend of mine says it's not fun anymore," Perlman said. "He said, 'I'm worried about getting an infrastructure together and I'm not writing a single line of code.' It's a classic example of what happens with little companies."
The name Rearden Steel is from the name of the embattled steel magnate, Hank Rearden, in Ayn Rand's1957 book "Atlas Shrugged" who is trying to defend his steel empire from being driven into the ground by government taxes and regulation.
"The name is an industrial age name, and we think we are a post-information age company," Perlman said. "Steel is so physical, it's so actual, but everything we are doing is so virtual. Over the Internet, everything is virtual."
Like most technology incubators - and there are may in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and other areas - Rearden Steel will be a place for start-up companies to hatch and then go out on their own after about a year.
Perlman says Rearden Steel will focus on companies with mass-market products. They should be able to either show a product or a service within one year.
Perlman will not be accepting business plans from entrepreneurs for another two months. In the meantime, Rearden Steel is funding a movie idea of Perlman's, a contemporary melodrama with some special effects, that takes place in Silicon Valley. He is pitching the idea to Hollywood.
"I had two failed start-ups before making WebTV work," Perlman said. "You have to try in order to work it out. Hopefully it will be successful and whatever we learn, we will take that with us."
He has an agent and is looking for a screenwriter.
Before co-founding WebTV, Perlman co-founded Catapult Entertainment, which developed a special modem for video game consoles for multiplayer games to be played online. He was also a managing director of advanced products at General Magic, which garnered much attention in 1993 with personal communications devices with messaging and intelligent agent software, but has since refocused on software and voice-enabled services.