Found In Space With more than 100 million Web pages cramming every corner of cyberspace, is it still possible to take your place among the stars?
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
"Go into CyberSpace." More than a century ago, HoratioAlger pointed budding BIZ Experiencess west. Today, his finger wouldbe aimed at a modem. The Internet has been the BIZ Experiencesial goldrush of the 1990s. From Amazon.com to Yahoo!, young BIZ Experiencesshave quickly latched on to emerging technology and almost asspeedily amassed personal fortunes that extend into seven figuresor more.
But are the glory days over? Not hardly. "Plenty ofopportunities remain on the Internet," says Jaclyn Easton, acomputer columnist for the Los Angeles Times who illustratedher optimistic claim in StrikingItRich.com (McGraw-Hill), abook that profiles 23 successful Web sites.
Even so, the days are gone when a business could just put up asite and expect traffic to show up. Bruce Judson, author ofHyperWars (Scribner), logs 25 hours per week just looking atnew sites, but most are failures. "Maybe 5 percent aregood," he laments. With well over 100 million Web pagescluttering the Net, you need to put up a site that's a lotbetter than the competition's, says Judson.
The encouraging news is, other BIZ Experiencess are still doingit--launching Web sites that attract traffic and snare substantialrevenues. Read on to discover how five thriving Web sites--somethat already have high Web visibility, and others that are likelyto soon--are distinguishing themselves from the crowd. They'veall staked out a niche, then pursued it energetically andcreatively, with their focus on giving customers services andproducts they can't easily get elsewhere. Can you do the same?You bet--just study what the following winners are doing, and applythose lessons to your own niche.
One-Stop Shop
When you think Internet, does your mind conjure up white lace,champagne and wedding bells? David Liu's did. In 1996, he andpartners Rob Fassino, Michael Wolfson and Carley Roney decided theNet was just the place for couples to shop before they tie theknot. It seems the partners were right. "We get 250,000 usersmonthly--not counting repeat visitors--which is four times morethan our nearest competitor," says CEO Liu, 33. "Andwe're signing up more than 1,000 new members a day."
Check out the site, and the reasons for the heavy traffic areclear. The Knot Inc. offers one-stop wedding information andplanning--from an online gift registry and a tool that searches forjust the right gown to chat rooms, write-ups about honeymoondestinations and pages of advice. "This medium is aboutservice," says Liu. "Everything on the site serves theconsumers' needs."
The age demographics of those planning first and secondmarriages match up well with the Internet's appeal to a youngcrowd, creating an opportunity any BIZ Experiences could love."Our prime audience is 18 to 35," says Liu, who adds that80 percent of the site's visitors are women.
Best of all, the would-be-wed are prized by advertisers, whoknow weddings trigger an avalanche of spending--on the weddingitself, as well as on the honeymoon and new household. "Wewanted a site that would generate ad revenues from day one, and wedid," says Liu.
One key to The Knot's success is flexibility. Originallyfunded by AOL's Greenhouse program, The Knot created its ownWeb site in 1997, and traffic is now split 60 percent via AOL, 40percent via The Knot's own site. The company is also exploringnew ways to increase revenue. "We originally thought we couldbe profitable on ad revenues alone, but we've now entered intoe-commerce arrangements," says Liu, meaning The Knot now actsas a full-line wedding retailer. More cash will come from ancillarydeals--a three-book contract with Bantam and a 13-part weddingseries on PBS. The company is also considering an initial publicoffering.
Add it up, and in 1998, The Knot garnered $1.2 million."Every day in the Internet business there are surprises,"Liu says, "but the greatest surprise has been the sheer volumeof opportunity."
Ask And You Shall Receive
Only sports junkies need apply for admission toOfficialStuff.com. In a nation packed with millions of hard-corefans, this site may be just the ticket to finding authenticprograms for major athletic events including the Super Bowl, WorldSeries, NCAA Final Four tournament and more. This may generate abig yawn to nonsports fans, but for enthusiasts, OfficialStuff isproviding coveted souvenirs (at around $15 per program) thataren't easily obtainable elsewhere. Some $250,000 in orderspoured in during just the first six weeks after the company'sNovember 1998 launch, according to Eric Douglass,OfficialStuff's founder and CEO.
"I looked around the Web and couldn't believe thisopportunity had been missed," says Douglass, 38. Deals wereeasily cut with the National Football League, National HockeyLeague and the governing bodies of other organized sportsleagues--mainly because, according to Douglass, the company offereda new outlet for selling this type of merchandise.
Douglass is off to a running start, busily hunting avenues togrow OfficialStuff's product line. He's selling programsubscription packages--a six-month, six-program subscription costs$69.95 and includes events such as the Kentucky Derby andgolf's Masters championship--and is also mounting a"Raiders of the Lost Archives" tool where visitors canpost memorabilia they want and OfficialStuff will attempt to fillthe order.
"Our aim is to be the Amazon.com of sports programs,whether it's for the Tour de France, the World Cup or the WorldSeries," says Douglass. "[An estimated] 65 million peoplewatch an event like the Super Bowl. If we can sell to just 1percent of them, that's nearly $1 million in sales. That'swhy I'm so optimistic about this business. Look around the Web,and there are still businesses people aren't doing--andOfficialStuff.com is one of them."
Touch and Go
Chew on this: The printing market in the United States accountsfor more than $132 billion in annual sales. "[But] walkinginto a local print shop is usually a terrible experience; the errorrate in traditional shops is 10 percent. That's madeestablishing our [business] on the Web much easier," says39-year-old Royal Farros, founder and CEO of iPrint.com, a Web sitethat's gunning for a giant slice of the quick-print market forletterhead, business cards, greeting cards and more.
Exactly how does this site handle printing? Very well, smilesFarros, who says his error rate is less than 1 percent. "Andwe deliver the printed products at prices that are 25 to 50 percentbelow retail," he adds.
How does he do it? IPrint's secret is products that aretruly WYSIWYG. Using design tools on the iPrint site, customerscreate their own documents quickly and easily, says Farros, whoclaims interactivity is key to iPrint's success. "So muchof the Internet is static information. We offer interactivity inthe visual dimension. Customers have fun creating their ownproducts online," Farros says.
Farros won't release exact sales figures but says thecompany grew at a rate of 35 percent per month in 1998 and achievedsales of more than $1 million. Not bad for a virtual company thatwas launched in 1996 with seed money provided entirely by Farros(from selling a desktop publishing software company he'dfounded).
In a bigger play, though, Farros has moved to co-opt possibleavenues of competition: "We're providing private-labelservices to many large office supply chains--OfficeMax, forinstance," he says. Log on to OfficeMax's Web site(http://www.officemax.com),place a print order, and you'll use iPrint's tools andtechnology without necessarily knowing it. "We see greatpotential for our private-label side," says Farros.
Even so, he adds, "I'm terrified about changes in thismarketplace. With the Internet, you never know what's comingnext. All we can do is build our brand--and make sure we stay aheadof the curve."
Special Delivery
It worked for Godiva and 1-800-FLOWERS. Now Mike Lannon, 40, whostarted his retail wine company in 1997 and took it online a yearlater, is betting the $150,000 he invested in SendWine.com thatwine will become the Internet's next big must-give item.
But that's easier said than done. A rat's nest ofantiquated state laws regulate alcohol sales, and in many cases,it's illegal for businesses to ship alcohol across state lines.Finding a solution to this problem was the cornerstone ofLannon's bright idea.
"We're building a nationwide network of local wineshops," he says. "We have about 100 retailers, and we caneasily--and legally--arrange shipments to more than 80 percent ofthe U.S. population."
How does it work? The consumer purchases a bottle of winethrough the Web site, and SendWine, in turn, contacts an affiliatedwine retailer near the recipient. The bottle is wrapped inSendWine.com's custom packaging--a white linen napkin with agold seal--then shipped via overnight or two-day delivery."We're fast, we're legal, and we make sure thepackaging is distinctive and suitable for a special gift,"says Lannon, who adds that most of his wines are priced upwards of$50. "Nobody else is pursuing this market in quite the way weare."
Strong as his idea is, Lannon isn't taking success forgranted. "We're in a race," he says. "We have tobuild our brand and our infrastructure of wine shops. If we doboth--and stay focused on delivering high-quality service to ourcustomers--we'll succeed."
HomeTown Appeal
"The Net has been a lifesaver for us. We would have closedshop without it," says Barb McCann, who along with herhusband, Jim, owns The Chocolate Vault in Tecumseh, Michigan, apicturesque small town about 60 miles west of Detroit. "Wecouldn't compete with the malls, but now the Web is bringing uscustomers from all over the country."
The Chocolate Vault isn't likely to become a multimilliondollar Web mega-success. Frankly, it's not shooting for thesame level of Internet stardom that the other sites profiled herecrave. But that doesn't mean it's not a significant triumphfor the McCanns.
Back in 1997, Barb and Jim faced up to the numbers. Profits weredwindling to the point where closing shop seemed the only option.But Barb had heard about the Web, and even though she was then 54and had no computer background, she decided she could get into iton her own. After spending a few hundred dollars--for a Web hostingservice and Microsoft's FrontPage Web-authoring program--Barblaunched her site in November 1997.
Has it succeeded? One-third of the McCanns' total businessnow comes from Web sales, and the numbers are soaring. For theChristmas 1998 season, sales were up 290 percent over 1997 figures.The daily visitor count now averages 150, with about 50 orderscoming in daily. "This has made all the difference to ourbusiness," says Barb, whose shop sells more than 100 varietiesof homemade chocolates, from mint patties and raisin clusters tomocha truffles and chocolate-covered ginger.
How has The Chocolate Vault prospered? Lots of shoestring,low-cost marketing techniques keep luring traffic to the site. Forinstance, a chatty newsletter, ChocoNews--written and published byBarb every month or so--goes to 2,900 subscribers. "It helpsbring customers back," she says. "About 20 percent of ourbuyers are repeat customers." The site also features customertestimonials and folksy touches such as"Choco-Poetry"--odes celebrating the candy. It runscontests, usually with small prizes, and will exchange links withvirtually any site that asks.
But probably the biggest factor in The Chocolate Vault'sonline success is that despite the anonymity of the Web, Barbstresses the personal touch. For example, customer e-mail isanswered the same day it's received, if possible. "We wantour Internet customers to feel they're getting small-townservice," says Barb. "When you visit us online, I wantyou to feel like you've just walked into our store and that youknow Jim and me. That's the key to our business: We're realpeople, and we care about our customers and our chocolates. Come toour site, and you'll see that's true."
Hazard Ahead
In the race to net success, it's full speed ahead, right?watch out--some road blocks could stop you in your tracks.
It's easy to build a poor site--use lots of slow-loadinggraphics and make it difficult for visitors to buy [yourproducts]," says Jaclyn Easton, a computer columnist for theLos Angeles Times and author of StrikingItRich.com(McGraw-Hill).
Who would do that? Unfortunately, thousands of BIZ Experiencessdoom their Web sites by erecting clumsy pages that take forever toload. "There's just a low level of patience for poor Webdesign when people are ready to part with their money on theInternet. They want to get to the goods very quickly," saysPaul LeBlanc, president of Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont,and director of its Internet Strategy Management Program.
To get it right the first time, pick your niche--find an areawhere the Web has unique appeal to customers, and discard allpreconceptions. Who would have thought a wedding site wouldprosper? Or a print shop? Today's Netpreneurs are rewritingevery rule in yesteryear's business books.
Simplification is also key. "You want a simple,straightforward design. People need to be able to navigate the siteeasily," says LeBlanc, who advises testing every element of asite on the 28.8 and 33.6 Kbps modems that remain the primaryavenues for connection to the Internet. Keep the customer'stechnology in mind.
Then be ready to keep changing the site: "Static sites aredeath," says LeBlanc. "You have to be prepared to make anongoing investment in keeping it fresh."
And you can never forget the basics of doing businesssuccessfully anywhere: "The best Web sites excel in customerservice," says Easton. "You need to answer e-mail inhours, not days, and you should put your toll-free number on everypage so customers can also call."
Follow these basic principles, and you'll likely standout--even among the tens of millions of companies already doingbusiness on the Web.
Contact Sources
The Chocolate Vault, (800) 525-1165, chocvlt@lni.net
iPrint Inc., (650) 298-8500
The Knot Inc., (888) 933-KNOT
OfficialStuff.com, (404) 261-9975
SendWine.com,info@sendwine.com
