It usually starts as a sideline, a chance to "harness the power of the Internet" and make a few extra dollars. But given even a modicum of success, one day you discover that you work at home. That there's a dot-com growing somewhere between your front and back doors. You're an online entrepreneur.
The variety of possibilities is amazing. A Salt Lake woman sells vitamins online, another does computer background checks. A Utah man runs an interior design business from his apartment; another hooks pets up with sitters when vacation means Fido stays home.An idea evolves into a business. That's what happened to Scott Crabill, who recently quit his old job to devote himself full time to selling high-end suspension mountain bikes. Customers can look at them on his Web site, Go-ride.com, then call him or e-mail him to place an order. Eventually, he may sell smaller, related products strictly online. But not yet. He didn't catch Web fever and set out to cash in. Rather, his malady was of the cycling variety. He loved bikes and competitive racing. And he noticed that manufacturers were struggling to make ends meet. So he contacted a manufacturer whose bicycles he liked and put in a large cash order, which earned him a very nice discount. It wasn't hard to find people who were willing to buy the bicycles, since he had not only an in-hand inventory, but also a great deal of personal expertise on the topic of the bikes.
The story isn't much different for Steve Hawkins and Tim Hall, co-owners of Cohezion Communications, an ad agency they run from their two homes. Online, they're Cohezion.com.
For them, the decision to work from home had many facets, but the shiniest one was a desire to "do away with all overhead" and create more flexible hours, Hawkins said.
They put their money into high-end equipment and fast Internet connections for their home offices. They built an elaborate intranet and have a part-time designer, who will probably go full time very soon. They've been more successful, faster, than either would have predicted.
Hawkins loves his time flexibility, though the number of hours he put in at first was daunting. Now he works from 6 a.m. until his kids get up. He helps them get ready for school, then goes back to work until they come home. At that point, he tries to be done for the day.
At a time when reports say that the age of the dot-com is about gone, that only the big ones with good name recognition will survive, Hawkins and Hall brought a combination of the old and the new techniques to their enterprise.
"Advertising is an industry that is very based on contacts," Hawkins said. "We tapped into all the contacts we've made over the years. We haven't done anything to promote ourselves online.
"I'm convinced that getting noticed on the Web is every bit as expensive (as promoting a business off the Web), if not more, in terms of promoting a site. For every Web site we built for clients, we asked them to be sure to put their Web address on everything they do in print."
Point-of-purchase displays, magazine ads, letterhead, business cards, everywhere. That it works was proven when one of their clients, a company that sells bridal dresses, put the Web address on the ads they placed places like Modern Bride. Now they get about 29,000 hits a month (about 12,000 of them from search engine hits) without ever buying a traditional Web ad, like a banner on a busy site. They've created their own "footprint" on the Internet.
When Cohezion started, about 75 percent of the work was designing Web pages. Now they're doing Web pages and things like magazines in an about 50-50 split.
Their infrastructure is almost completely online.
Hawkins and Hall work together but can go for more than a week without meeting face-to-face. They talk on the phone and collaborate over the Internet, making changes, uploading and reviewing each other's efforts.
Not everyone who tries to go online succeeds the first time out. One local company, whose site is designed around LDS missionaries and their needs, went online and offline almost simultaneously. They weren't ready for the traffic they received; they took the page down and retooled it, then rethought how they wanted to approach the business before going online again.
And others, like a man we'll call Bill Hansen, are moving slowly to start their online businesses. Hansen has been working with several partners for a few months setting up an online business involving the travel industry. The competition is too fierce to let word of their plans get out before they're really ready to go, he said. That's why he asked his last name not be used.
He's held another job as he geared up. "I've been in the computer business for years and have been thinking about this for quite a while. There's a lot of groundwork in terms of getting set up to receive credit card payment and a lot of product development. Then there's the question of buying a domain site and getting a Web page up. But we're almost ready."
The pieces are falling together in such a way that it may be a "garage" enterprise, too big to fold into his home.
He hopes so.
He predicts it will become a full-time job for him. "I would worry about all this if my life depended on it," he said. "But it doesn't. I won't put myself in that position. We'll grow as we grow. It's a minimal financial investment to get started, though you have to invest timewise. But that pays itself back. I have to learn these skills anyway. They're very usable skills."
It's the same cautious approach Crabill took when he was getting started with mountain bikes. He said he was lucky because he has a particular niche and doesn't have heavy-hitter, wealthy competitors. Even so, he made sure he didn't cut his other-employment safety net until he had six month's worth of operating expenses available.
"So many businesses fail because they see opportunity without the cash reserves to get there."
And he's kept up his other marketable skills. "In the event I felt I was going too deep into my own cash, it wouldn't be hard to get another job in a week. And I've paid for everything. I have no debt. So I'm fine."
Debt's a big question. A great many of the Web-based businesses have been funded with private fortunes and by investments from venture capitalists. But a lot of that well has been tapped. Success could depend on creative financing and the ability to generate "buzz" without spending a fortune. Industry experts say it can cost millions to get an online business established.
Most simply won't succeed, experts say. But Hawkins and Hall, Hansen and Crabill all believe there's room for people who do their homework, know their product and aren't afraid to take the chance.
They're banking on it.