First Click: The Story of DealerNet The World's First Automotive Online Marketplace

In 1994, most Americans had never heard of the World Wide Web. Martin Rood had never heard of it either--until a postcard invitation to a University of Washington seminar sent him down a rabbit hole that would put his hometown of Seattle at the center of an entirely new industry.

Rood wasn't a programmer. He was a car dealer. But when he decided to put his Nissan and Volvo inventory online, he didn't just build a website--he built DealerNet, the world's first automotive online marketplace an...