Leap of faith: How steals.com became a smashing success.

• Author: Haraldsen, Tom
• Position: Learned

Nearly seven years ago, Jana Francis had a pretty normal life. She was working full time, raising two sons and expecting her third child--a girl. Because there were no hand-me-downs for her new daughter, Francis began searching online for products to purchase for the baby. It didn't take long for her to realize the internet was lacking something she--and probably many other mothers--was looking for when it came to baby items: great steals.

That's when Francis decided to create a deal website where moms from around the world could get good deals on baby clothing and other supplies. That's also when Francis traded in her role as a traditional 9-to-5 employee and became an entrepreneur.

Today, Francis' website, which has evolved into the Steals.com network, is one of the nation's most successful e-commerce sites--with literally hundreds of thousands of followers in the United States, Canada and overseas turning to its posts twice a day for the latest, greatest deals. The sites carry a gamut of items, from shoes for babies to beauty products for moms.

Francis and her business partner, Rett Clevenger, launched Steals.com in April 2008. For the first year, it was just the two of them--with assistance from a webmaster--buying product, posting daily deals online, taking orders and shipping items out of Francis' garage. They took no paychecks that first year, instead investing their profits back into the business. After renting a small warehouse for a year and adding a few staff members, the company eventually moved to its current 35,000-square-foot warehouse location on the west side of Salt Lake City in 2010.

Francis has some useful advice for those looking to take the plunge and launch their own companies:

Grow at the Right Pace

"I actually worked on creating this idea for 18 months before we launched it," Francis says. "I was working full time, and every night after the boys were in bed, I'd sit at my computer and begin assembling components of a business plan, just one tiny step at a time."

When she partnered up with Clevenger, whom she'd met when he was online media manager for Backcountry.com, they grew the business in small increments as well.

"We didn't go after any loans or take on any debt, and we grew the company very slowly," she says. "There was wisdom in that, I'm sure. Still, if I had known how huge this market was going to be, I probably would have assembled a bigger team right out of the gate, left my job the minute I had the idea...