May 27--It was Saturday night at El Azteca in Buckhead, and Deslie Webb talked into a tiny mouthpiece attached to her cellphone. Around her, waiters served up big margaritas and platters of cheap Mexican food. 

Webb, then 34, was negotiating a funding deal for eGulliver, the Internet travel company she started in 1999. She shared a table with her parents, who drove to Atlanta from Melbourne, Fla., for a long weekend. 

She felt guilty for ignoring her parents, but she kept talking anyway. Parents understand. 

Webb was desperately trying to save eGulliver. Her obsession did not stop for family visits, for holidays, for anything. 

Like countless entrepreneurs, Webb left a high-paying corporate job during the Internet boom. She gave up a $120,000 salary and a $75,000 annual bonus for a $60,000 salary and a stake in eGulliver. It barely seemed risky. But on April 14, 2000, the rules abruptly changed. The Nasdaq fell 355 points, its biggest single-day drop ever. Although few realized it, it was the beginning of the end for many dot-coms. The business plans of start-ups like eGulliver didn't call for profitability in the short term, so they depended on venture capital to stay alive. Suddenly, money was hard to find. Internet firms shut down. 

Webb never got the chance to focus on building the business she dreamed up; she was too busy begging for capital. As the Nasdaq tumbled, the same story played out for entrepreneurs across the country. 

This is her story. 

A self-described optimist, Webb has a soft voice, a quick smile and layers of brown hair. Her mascara often is smudged a little below her brown eyes. 

During the past year, she has answered her cellphone everywhere. She has worked late and every weekend. No time for grocery shopping or cooking, she regularly stopped at the McDonald's drive-through, ordering a cheeseburger, small fries and small Diet Coke. The smell of grease permeated her black Lexus, a vestige from her six-figure-salaried life. She ate while driving home, then stuffed the wrappers into a trash can in the parking garage of her Buckhead apartment complex, ready to work again. 

She did take an occasional break, visiting family for holidays, grabbing a drink with a friend, even going on an occasional date. But the breaks were superficial. 

"Work is the focus of every waking hour," she said. 

A military brat, Webb grew up moving around a lot. Her father, Jack, retired from the service in 1980 and became a mail carrier in Melbourne, timing it so his daughter and son could attend middle school and high school in one place. Their mother, Paula, worked as a librarian at a community college. 

Deslie was "always in charge," her father joked. "She wouldn't let her brother talk until he was 5." 

By her 30th birthday, she had a master's degree in engineering from George Washington University and a master's in business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She came up with the idea for eGulliver while chief information officer at Carlson Wagonlit Travel's leisure division. 

EGulliver's Web site connects a person planning a complex vacation -- say, a family golf trip to Ireland or a honeymoon to a remote island in the South Pacific -- with a travel agent specializing in that type of trip. The travel agent pays eGulliver for the lead. 

Webb shared her idea with technology attorney John Yates in May 1999. By June, she had $1.5 million from Noro-Moseley Partners, one of the Southeast's most prestigious venture capital firms. She and three of her employees at Carlson -- Grazia Sorice, Kirt Greenburg and J.R. Mayhew -- founded eGulliver. Sorice headed marketing, Mayhew was in charge of technology and Greenburg handled operations. 

They started off in a corner of Noro-Moseley's office, then moved to the Advanced Technology Development Center, a state-funded incubator that houses start-ups cheap. 

By May 2000, the 15-person company had built most of the technology necessary to launch its Web site. It was time to look for more money. She needed $5 million in venture capital by Sept. 1 to keep eGulliver alive. 

Springboard 2000, a conference in Dulles, Va., at which women entrepreneurs present their business plans to venture capitalists, is set to start in less than an hour. Webb has heard that most of the entrepreneurs invited to the annual conference get funding -- good news because her first two months of fund-raising has been frustrating. Many investors say they no longer are investing in consumer Internet companies. Already, prestigious California investors turned her down. 

There are bright spots. Noro-Moseley agreed to invest again, and Webb had coffee this morning with Jonathon Silver, a partner at Core Capital, a Washington venture capital firm. 

When the conference starts, the flood of investors doesn't materialize. After awhile, Webb starts wandering through the lobby looking for venture capitalists, her heels clicking as she walks. 

Webb returns from a family Alaskan vacation to find an e-mail from Silver at Core Capital, saying the firm would not invest. 

That was her only chance for funding by the Sept. 1 deadline. 

After Silver's rejection, Webb calls eGulliver board member Alan Taetle, a partner at Noro-Moseley. He tells her Noro-Moseley would lend eGulliver $1.5 million so the company could keep looking for investors for another few months. The debt will transfer to equity if she gets another investor. 

Around the office, Webb cheers the company's accomplishments. More than 400 travel agents are registered. And major travel Web site Expedia.com is interested in signing a distribution deal. If that happens, Expedia will send people who want off-line travel planning to eGulliver. 

But late at night, when her office window is dark, when other employees are home, she is frustrated and scared. She's got a cough. Her throat hurts. She's tired. 

Venture capitalists -- more afraid of risk than six months ago -- want partnerships with sites like Expedia to drive traffic. But it is hard to get those partnerships until the Web site is complete. And she needs more money to finish building the Web site. 

Webb flies to Seattle to Expedia's headquarters for the final negotiations. She already has met with the company four times. She estimates the partnership would drive 16 million consumers to eGulliver during the next three years. 

She negotiates a deal. Expedia and eGulliver will share revenue from business that Expedia generates, and Expedia gets an ownership stake in eGulliver. 

"This is the hugest thing I have ever done in my life!" she gushes. There are a handful of venture capital firms -- including Fund Isabella in Cincinnati and Wakefield Group in Charlotte--that said they would be interested in investing if she could get Expedia on board. She also thinks the California investors might take another look. 

"You do this stuff and it is so exciting, and then you think, `I have so much work to do,"' she says. 

Fund Isabella says no. The Wakefield Group says no. Every firm that said it would be more interested, if she could just get the Expedia deal, says no. 

"People don't want to look bad and say they invested in the b-to-c space. It is not `in,"' Webb says. "I am starting on the ground floor again." 

Peg Wyant from Fund Isabella blames it on the market, although she praises Webb, calling her "one of the more articulate and persuasive CEOs we have ever come across." 

Webb is cutting expenses such as buying hardware so eGulliver can last longer on the $1.5 million loan from Noro-Moseley. The Expedia partnership -- set to be implemented Jan. 1 -- is put on hold. EGulliver can't afford to develop the necessary technology. 

"We can hold on through February or mid-March," she says. 

Webb's expectations are low for a meeting this afternoon with Buck Goldstein from Mellon Ventures, a firm that turned her down but agreed to meet again. 

Goldstein, Sorice and Webb sit in Mellon's offices. They talk about how difficult fund raising is. Goldstein says it is worse than it has ever been. 

Webb distributes handouts of her usual presentation, then does an abbreviated version since Goldstein has seen it before. She focuses on the progress. Goldstein, 53, makes notes in the margins. He sticks a ballpoint pen into his mouth when he thinks. 

At first, his questions are basic. Then, he delves in, making suggestions, asking hard questions and quoting from a Harvard report. He is interested. 

As they wrap up, Goldstein says he is meeting with Taetle from Noro-Moseley on Monday and will discuss eGulliver. He asks Webb to send him an updated business plan. 

She nods. It's in the mail. 

"You are going to get it done," he says. "I know you will because you have made so much progress." 

After the meeting, Webb and Sorice stand by a bank of elevators in the office building's lobby. They agree the meeting went better than expected, but Webb says it happens all the time. She has a good meeting, then the investor's partners shoot down eGulliver the minute they hear "consumer" and "travel." 

She knows better than to be excited. 

She is excited. 

Goldstein calls her to say he wants to begin due diligence, jargon for serious research. No investor has gone this far. On Nov. 10, he and another Mellon partner spend four hours at eGulliver, poring over financial information and asking questions. Although she was skeptical two weeks ago, now an investment from the firm makes sense. After all, Mellon and Noro-Moseley already have done many deals together. 

She flies to Florida for Thanksgiving on Nov. 17. She is glad to have some good news for her folks. She phones them several times a week with updates on the eGulliver roller coaster. Sometimes she omits disappointments. She knows they worry. 

She spends much of her vacation working in a quiet room of her parents' golf course retirement home. She knows the others -- her brother and his wife, expecting their first baby, are visiting from California -- don't want to talk about eGulliver nonstop. She tries to hide her obsession. 

When Deslie returns to Atlanta, the funding situation starts to look even more promising. She has serious interest from two new investors: Norfolk, Va.-based Landmark Communications, which owns the Weather Channel, and the Destination Group, a Los Angeles private equity firm focusing on media and tourism. 

It is a raw, winter day, bitterly cold by Atlanta standards. 

Webb is in her office. A poster on the wall of Webb's office says, "Risk. A ship in the harbor is safe. ... But that is not what ships were made for." 

The phone rings. It is Goldstein from Mellon Ventures. He has decided not to invest -- the margins are too small. Even if she gets tens of thousands of visitors, the revenue is still not a knockout. Goldstein tells her it came down to a "head vs. heart decision." He went with his head. 

Time is running out. 

The first employee quits. Others are worried. Sorice, sitting in a cramped office she shares with another employee, says she might become a consultant if eGulliver doesn't make it. She wants to make some money, get savings in the bank. 

Standing outside smoking a cigarette, Web developer Dan Pagan says his workload is light. He is waiting on hardware the company can't afford. 

Webb is hopeful when she catches her flight to Florida for Christmas. Landmark Communications is doing due diligence. An analyst from Landmark canceled his vacation to work on the deal. Webb sent him Expedia T-shirts as thanks. 

And the Destination Group wants to meet in January. 

She spends five days with her folks, then flies to New York to spend New Year's Eve with a travel magazine editor she began dating a few months ago. They talk on the phone most nights and meet at travel conferences every few weeks -- the only time Webb has for the budding relationship. 

Webb listens to a voice mail from Taetle: "I just heard from Landmark -- good news and bad news. Call me." 

When she reaches him, he tells her Landmark is sending eGulliver a term sheet, the document outlining a funding agreement. Though not legally binding, a term sheet is a major step. 

This is what she has been waiting for. 

The bad news is that the terms aren't great. Other shareholders -- including the founders, Noro-Moseley and Expedia -- must agree to give up some equity. It is not a done deal. 

But she has a term sheet! 

Webb checks her e-mail and finds a message from the Destination Group. She clicks it open. It is a term sheet. This is too good to be true. 

She thought she would be ecstatic. Instead, she is strangely calm, says she feels like she needs "to go home and lie down." 

Webb is ready to celebrate. She invites a friend over. The plan is to drink wine, eat dinner and watch "Temptation Island." 

She is waiting to hear that Landmark approved the venture capital deal. Her voice mail box is full of messages from the otherfounders, also eager to hear the news. 

Landmark, Expedia, Noro-Moseley and eGulliver negotiated an agreement, which Landmark was set to officially approve today. Soon Webb will be able to put the funding nightmare behind her and focus on the business. 

She sits on the floor of her apartment, a couple of feet from the television. She started sitting there when she ate because she didn't have a table and didn't want to drop food on her white sofa. Now she likes the spot. Next to her is a makeshift coffee table, a piece of glass set on stacks of books, which are mostly about business or the Internet, with a few random selections like "Summer Sisters" by Judy Blume. 

Her cellphone rings at 6 p.m. Landmark executives have changed their minds. The deal is off. Landmark is not sure the market is big enough. 

She is in shock. She calls Sorice, who is waiting for a date to arrive. 

"They pulled the deal." 

There is a long silence. Sorice later calls this moment the "rawest time." 

Webb calls co-founder Greenburg, then her parents. She talks on the phone until 9:30. 

The next day, Webb tells Taetle she will try to get Destination to lead the investment. If that doesn't work, she will try to sell the business. He tells her to do both at the same time. She is running out of money and time. Her funding will last through the end of February. 

Back at the office, she calls Simon Todd, a principal at Destination. She tells him her lead investor has pulled out. Webb, who originally picked Landmark over Destination because the terms were better, is not in the best bargaining position. He later describes her position as "Take me. I'm yours." 

On Friday morning she gets a new term sheet from Destination. The company wants a major equity stake and control of the board. Taetle tells Webb the terms are unacceptable. 

She flies to Florida for the weekend. Her brother's family is visiting Melbourne and she can't miss the chance to see her new niece. She buys the baby two outfits at the airport. 

During the next week, Simon Todd flies to Atlanta to meet with Taetle and agrees to tweak the deal slightly. 

He says Destination won't be able to approve the deal until its April board meeting. Webb can't make payroll while she waits, so she and Taetle discuss the possibility of Noro-Moseley lending eGulliver another $400,000. 

Webb does a presentation for Noro-Moseley's partners in their boardroom. She stands at the head of a long table, dressed in black with a long silver necklace, and tries to sell them on the loan. 

Nervously, she leaves the office. This was not the rubber-stamp meeting she expected. The partners are concerned about Destination's offer. 

Taetle calls. 

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" he asks. 

"The good news." 

"The good news is you don't have to worry about cash in the short term. We are going to keep funding you. The bad news is no one wants to do the deal." 

"OK," she says. "What do I do now?" 

He suggests she try to sell the company to WorldTravel BTI, an Atlanta company that has expressed some interest, to Expedia, to any other potential buyers. Then, go back to Destination and either get better terms for funding or try to sell Destination the whole company. Noro-Moseley will fund the next payroll, which starts March 2. That's all the firm is promising. 

She and the other founders meet in the conference room. Employees think it is a regular managers' meeting, unaware that hope for eGulliver as an independent company is dying. 

Webb's makeup is smeared. Her voice is tired. 

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" 

Webb's frantic search for a buyer culminates when WorldTravel makes an offer to buy eGulliver. Noro-Moseley approves it. 

Although she originally did not want to sell so early, Webb now is hopeful. She couldn't raise money, and selling is better than closing down. At least all employees will get jobs in Atlanta and can continue building the business. And WorldTravel, one of the biggest travel companies in the country, is offering her a job heading eGulliver and other divisions. 

But it's not a done deal. Jack Alexander, chief executive, tells Webb that WorldTravel and Expedia don't agree on certain terms. 

Alexander and Expedia's chief executive have scheduled a phone conversation for tomorrow. He will call her if they decide anything. She doesn't sleep much. She imagines what she will tell employees if the deal falls apart and she has to close eGulliver next week. She gets up and reads a Zen book. 

The next day she calls Taetle and asks if she should go back to venture capitalists who showed interest at some point, if she should try to find a different buyer. 

He tells her this is it. If the WorldTravel deal doesn't work out, it is time to give up. 

Webb is at a homeless shelter, volunteering with other members of a women's business networking group. She is sorting through a pile of donated shoes when her cellphone rings. She sits in her car in the parking lot for an hour, talking with Taetle and Alexander. They tell her the deal is close; Noro-Moseley will wire her money for another payroll tomorrow. Next week, WorldTravel will take over. 

This is going to happen. 

The deal still is not signed. Alexander tells Webb it could fall apart. Expedia and WorldTravel, which already have a relationship, cannot get past their differences on this deal. She cries for more than an hour. 

The deal is still not signed. Expedia and WorldTravel are at an impasse. 

Webb writes a new proposal, one she hopes will satisfy both. Executives from the companies tell her the new proposal is better but not good enough. Because this deal is so complex, WorldTravel will invest in different companies instead. 

Webb is out of time. She can't pay employees past tomorrow. 

She drives back to eGulliver after a meeting at WorldTravel. She closes the door to her office. 

"I have lost something," she says. "I wanted to be a part of something bigger." 

She is worried about the company's 15 employees, who won't get severance. "There are people here with 60 bucks in their bank accounts." 

The company's three developers have been working overtime to finish building a new and improved site for a launch with WorldTravel. She can't let them work late another night. 

Webb calls Pagan, director of development. He is in his car, picking up dinner, and plans to head back to the house where the tech team is working. They all live in Kennesaw and have been working there to save driving time. 

When Webb tells him she is shutting the company down, he asks if he will get severance. He has a new baby. His wife's schoolteacher salary won't pay the bills. 

She tells him no. 

She drives to his house, where he is sitting on the balcony, drinking Jack Daniel's on the rocks. They sit in front of the television -- "Survivor" is on -- and talk. Together they tell the other developers. 

The Web developers still want to show her the new site. Proudly, they load it on a computer. 

Afterward, she gets in her Lexus and drives home. Tomorrow, she will tell the others. 

Noro-Moseley paid Webb for another month while she sold eGulliver's assets, from the servers to the paper clips. Her last day at the company was Tuesday. She isn't sure what her next career move will be. "I'm still feeling like I need a little recovery time," she said. She does know she'll be planning a wedding. Her boyfriend moved to Atlanta and proposed May 6. 

J.R. Mayhew has rejoined a Web development firm he helped start before eGulliver. Kirt Greenburg is looking for another operations job and enjoying his time off. The tomatoes in his garden are almost ripe. Grazia Sorice accepted a job as vice president of marketing at an early-stage travel technology company in San Francisco. She is moving next month. The developers got jobs at WorldTravel and started work within a week of leaving eGulliver. 

EGULLIVER AT A GLANCE: Deslie Webb, 35, chief executive and headed up fund-raising efforts. Many venture capitalists said they were interested in the deal primarily because they respect her. 

J.R. Mayhew, 33, a co-founder and chief technology officer. The only founder with a family to support, he took more salary and less equity. 

Grazia Sorice, 28, youngest founder and the chief marketing officer. Passionate. Webb describes Sorice as a "pistol." Sorice attended some investor meetings. 

Kirt Greenburg, 32, head of operations, financials and hiring. Accompanied Webb on meetings with WorldTravel, though most of his work was internally focused. 

THE BUSINESS: Travel agents registered their areas of expertise, such as honeymoon planning, Caribbean cruises or adoption tours in China. Consumers planning a complex trip -- more than just booking airline tickets and a hotel room -- queried eGulliver. The site suggests several agents that are good matches. 

The travel agent pays to register on the site, pays for leads and gives eGulliver a percentage of each closed sale. EGulliver planned to drive traffic to its site through partnerships. For instance, it signed a deal with Expedia.com, which called for Expedia to send people wanting off-line planning to eGulliver. 

HEADQUARTERS: Advanced Technology Development Center in Midtown. 

EMPLOYEES: 15 

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(c) 2001, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MCD, KO, TOYOY, EXPE,