When Linda Kanner arrived at HBS in 1973, she had two sons: Adam, three, and Ben, one. Her husband, a doctor, was moonlighting in local emergency rooms while studying for his own MBA degree at MIT's Sloan School, and Kanner was also working as a part-time consultant. That experience gave her a healthy perspective during her recent initiation into the topsy-turvy world of start-ups, as cofounder of Boston-based edu.com. "If I was able to get through HBS under those circumstances, I figured I could handle anything," Kanner remarks.

Kanner describes her plunge into the world of e-commerce as a "counterphobic move." Punch cards and mainframes were the technological order of the day when she enrolled at HBS, and a successful career in marketing -- including top-level positions at J. Baker Inc. and Bank of New England -- had required little direct experience with computers.

The opposite was true of her techno-savvy son Adam (MBA '98). "He's had a million ideas forever," Kanner laughs. "I was always Adam's sounding board." One of those ideas was for an e-commerce Web site that would offer discounted goods and services to students. Keen to learn more about the Internet, Kanner sat in on some HBS classes, including those in which edu.com was developed as a business plan. After moving back home to launch his company, Adam didn't look far for his first partner.

"I was doing some consulting work and considering opportunities in advertising when Adam asked me to help him out," Kanner recalls. "I wasn't sure the idea would be fundable with a family team, but the venture community liked the combination of Adam as the young, bright, in-touch-with-the-market CEO and me as the experienced person behind him." Two years later, the company employs one hundred people, and Kanner seems pleased with her dual role as a parent and a key player in getting this particular dot-com off to a running start.

"I can't imagine a better place to understand the dynamics of the Internet," she says. "We've built a fairly complex site that's a combination of consumer marketing and also B2B -- and we're dealing with commerce partners like Microsoft, IBM, and AT&T."

Of course, stress, doubt, and eighty-hour weeks are also part of the picture. "It's hard to keep the feelings you have for family members separate when you're working together," admits Kanner. "But I have great relationships with all three of my children. I understood early on that you can't define who they are. It's been amazing to watch Adam develop."

Kanner plans to devote more time in the future to several organizations she's worked with over the years, including the Huntington Theatre Company, Beth Israel Hospital, and the Commonwealth Institute, which provides mentoring services to women CEOs. But she doesn't expect to leave the wired world any time soon. "I don't want to retire just yet. My dad is 80 and is still chairman of his company," Kanner notes. No doubt Adam Kanner will be saying something similar at his own 25th Reunion.

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