Mark Skiba

The lack of one crucial resource for a start-up, capital, can tempt you to skimp on another, management. The result is that the start-up is often crude, fragile and risky, like the first airplane flown by the Wright brothers. Many an entrepreneur finds a creative way to succeed anyway, as the Wright brothers did--and as Mark Skiba did in launching his Marina del Rey company, Storactive Inc., which makes online computer backup software.

The lack of one crucial resource for a start-up, capital, can tempt you to skimp on another, management. The result is that the start-up is often crude, fragile and risky, like the first airplane flown by the Wright brothers. Many an entrepreneur finds a creative way to succeed anyway, as the Wright brothers did--and as Mark Skiba did in launching his Marina del Rey company, Storactive Inc., which makes online computer backup software.

In their biggest show of force to date, 400 members of Los Angeles' high-tech community turned out for the inaugural meeting of Zone Club, a group that aims to help Southern California become another Silicon Valley. But some of the sentiments expressed at the event, held Wednesday night at Ciudad restaurant in downtown L.A. and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, underscored the amount of work it will take to achieve that goal.