The difference is, some Internet companies can scrape by with very little of either and still become a booming success.
Grupthink, for one, was created in Missoula with a budget of exactly zero dollars, explained John Masterson, a co-founder of the Web site and of Modwest, a fast-growing Web-hosting company that currently boasts customers in 53 countries.
“These are questions for which the full range of answers is impossible to know,” he offered.
On Grupthink, anyone can pose a question, provide an answer and vote for their favorites. That makes it a useful way to gauge public opinion on such personal and pressing matters as “Which pair of sunglasses looks better on me?” or “What should I name my baby?” Masterson explained.
“What you end up with is the aggregate answer of a community to an open-ended question,” he said.
Technically, the business has no employees, although Modwest acts as its “mother ship,” he said. Because it relies on Modwest's labor and resources, it costs nothing to operate, yet it has the capacity to generate revenue through content-related ads. Currently, Masterson said, it is earning only a few dollars a day - but that could change significantly after the site undergoes a planned “reinvention” in the near future.
The revenue question looms large for any Internet-based business, said Jen Boulden, co-founder of the “light green” eco-living company Ideal Bite.
Boulden, whose career includes stints at IBM, Hearst, the World Research Institute and the Rocky Mountain Institute, helped start Ideal Bite in early 2005 with the idea of providing easy, pain-free advice on how to live greener lives to those who care about the environment but aren't necessarily fanatic about it, she explained.
The company has an almost nonexistent marketing budget, but has nevertheless succeeded in spreading the word to 90,000 subscribers - and counting. In fact, the site has grown a national reputation with mentions by Martha Stewart, Vanity Fair, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, to name a few.
Word-of-mouth referrals account for probably 60 percent of the company's growth, Boulden said, but the company also drives subscriptions by offering prizes to users who get their friends to sign up. The large subscriber base helps drive advertising sales - and that's how the business, like most Internet ventures, makes money, she said.
Growing online traffic can be a long, slow grind, Masterson added, but the crew he works with knows a few tricks. For instance, audience participation is a hallmark of the new Web economy, and sites that provide these opportunities virtually guarantee increased visitation. Top 10 lists, he noted, are particularly popular.
Grupthink got the ball rolling initially by posting provocative questions and then spreading the word via other hot networking sites, such as Digg.com and del.icio.us. Since Grupthink was launched last April, it has attracted 500,000 unique visitors, Masterson said.
However, had it required programmers or other skilled workers, Grupthink would have been a difficult venture to get started, he said. It's not as easy to find tech experts in Missoula as it is in, say, Denver.
That said, the “Montana mystique” is a major draw that he has yet to capitalize on, he admitted.
Ideal Bite is based in Bozeman because the other half of its founding duo, Heather Stephenson, is originally from Montana and she is concerned about the state's “brain drain” problem, in which the best and brightest are forced to find employment elsewhere.
“We said, let's be an example of a company that can actually grow and flourish in Montana,” Boulden said.
Boulden decided to make Montana her home because she fell in love with the region, and hers is truly the kind of business that can be run from anywhere. Still, the remoteness can be a challenge. The company also has offices in Brooklyn, N.Y., and while rent in Bozeman is certainly less expensive, any savings is offset by sky-high travel expenses, she said.
While venture capital in Montana is scarce, there's an undeniable advantage to being the big fish in a small pond, she said, as opposed to the “sharklike” funding atmosphere of more populated states.
Last week's panel discussion was co-sponsored by the Montana Community Development Corp., which hopes to make this sort of discussion on entrepreneurship part of a regular series, said Anne Iverson, director of the MCDC's Small Business Development Center.
“We believe that entrepreneurs are, in general, going to be the background of growing the Montana economy,” Iverson said in her welcoming remarks to the panel.
Reporter Tyler Christensen can be reached at 523-5215 or at tyler.christensen@lee.net.
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