SBA woman-owned business of the year: how legacy tree genealogists sprouted and grew.

• Author: Haraldsen, Tom
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: BANKING & FINANCE

Jessica Taylor loved hearing her grandparents tell stories from their lives and studying the histories ot family members. She loved it as a hobby, but until she got to college never realized it could become both a passion and a profession.

"When I first got to BYU, I was really looking for a major," she recalls. "That's when I discovered the school had a family history-genealogy major. That's how it began for me."

She graduated and started her own business, Legacy Tree Genealogists, in 2004. This May, she was honored with the Small Business Administration's Woman-Owned Business of the Year at a ceremony held at the Silicon Slopes facility in Lehi.

"Legacy Tree Genealogists was among a competitive field of deserving applications," says Siobhan Carlisle of the SBA. "Legacy Tree stood out during the selection process because of its sustained growth in the genealogy field, for its peer-to-peer support within that community and its dedication to a high standard of personal service to its worldwide customers."

In the beginning

"When I started the company, the web was still fairly new. So I started advertising on Google Adwords--which was also new and cheap," Taylor says. "It was a pretty good time to put a business out there. I assembled a simplistic website by using an online hosting company, and we were off."

She started doing most of the research for clients herself, eventually adding contracted researchers as business dictated. By 2008, she brought in a project manager, and the company continued to grow. Today, Legacy Tree has 20 employees and works with 50 other contractors throughout the world to fulfill the needs of their customers.

Honored by the award, Taylor says she appreciates the help that the SBA offers small businesses like hers as they are getting started.

"As the name applies, we work with small businesses to aid them in any way we can," says Steve Price, deputy director for the Utah SBA office. "Governments know that most new jobs in the country come from small businesses, which is one reason we offer SBA loans. You almost always find you need more capital than you have when you start a business."

He says the SBA loan program, a part of the entire startup support system offered by the SBA, provides capital at reasonable rates.

"Most banks don't want to deal with small businesses, since they have a high failure rate during the first five years. So we work with lenders that want to sign on with us, guaranteeing the repayment and...