Small Internet Biz: Dig Deep and Mess Around

Is there still room for a small start-up to succeed online? Can you go it alone without the backing of venture capitalists? Are all the brilliant Internet ideas already taken? These critical questions are worth consideration if you’re about to launch a site or you’re already up but not faring well. Some believe small companies have been completely elbowed out by Net mega-monsters funded by the bleeding capital of crumbling and desperate brick industries.

Not quite yet.

One of the cardinal rules of the Internet: if you appeal to a general audience, you’ve gotta be big. Think of the general sites, Priceline.com, Amazon.com, eBay. Even the biggest budgets can’t budge this bunch. The only way Time Warner could get into the big league game was to surrender control to the man in short pants, America Online.

However, it’s still possible for a little site on the corner to offer catchy niche info that makes a big noise among enthusiast consumers. You have to think tiny, tiny niche. Fishing isn’t small enough. Fly fishing isn’t small enough. You have to get down to fish varieties. If I want to reach hot food lovers, it’s too late for a Peppers.com. I’d go for Habanero.com. And once up, I’d play around with the subject till the visitors let me know what they really like. Dig deep into the subject, then mess around until your visitors become repeat buyers.

I found a hot little niche site that pinpoints small-site success: PrairieFrontier.com. Deb Edlhuber bought her first-ever PC and signed up with America Online in 1996. At the time she owned a tiny company that propagated and sold prairie grass and wildflower seeds to garden centers in southeastern Wisconsin. She decided to create a Web site and post some of her wildflower photos. In 1997 she splurged on a scanner and built PrairieFrontier.com She put up her photos and offered seeds for sale. She printed her Web address on the seed packaging sold in stores and began to receive a trickle of visitors.

Then she got smart. Edlhuber spent six months online learning, researching, reading and learning some more. She tried some of the tricks she read about. She signed up with LinkExchange, which helped her swap banner ads with other sites. Her investment in the launch: $400.

Edlhuber added a few more extras, turning some of her photos into puzzles, Web skin, games and a slide show that visually shows how to create a prairie. Her trickle of visitors turned into a rushing stream. "We had never advertised before, so I had no idea it would snowball like it did," said Edlhuber.

She continued to dress up her site and attract visitors. She added a greeting card service, using her wildflower photos as the artwork. More banner ads swapped to promote the free cards, which of course brought flower lovers to the site. Next came forums so her enthusiasts (and now customers) could post questions and offer answers. Soon her site was the center for Midwest wildflowers and prairie grass lovers. The forums are self-sustaining, though she pokes her none in several times a day to see that all the questions are getting answered. The $400 investment quickly delivered $75,000 in sales.

Her next step? Edlhuber is considering running auctions, selling garden tools, furniture and supplies. Why not, she already has the audience, which is the real trick to online success. Adding new products is just a matter of testing what her followers are willing to purchase from a site they’ve come to love. As for the inventory and shipping, she expects to work with a reliable garden site that can provide drop-shipping.

What’s the secret of Eldhuber’s strategy? Dig deep into a niche subject and mess around until you find what works.

About the Author

Robert Spiegel is the author of The Complete Guide to Home Business (AMACOM) and The Shoestring Entrepreneurs Guide to the Best Home-Based Businesses (St. Martins Press, due Feb. 2000). For questions or comments, email Rob

:To contact Rob see details below.


spiegelrob@aol.com.