A success story: www.brownbearsw.com.

• Author: Oswald, Lori Jo
• Position: Brown Bear Software

Brown Bear Software markets products exclusively via the web, and offers tips for other businesses to get started.

Seven years ago, Mike Gardner, sole proprietor of Brown Bear Software, accepted a downsizing severance package and quit his job as a research and design engineer with Hewlett-Packard in Colorado Springs. On a lark, he moved with his family to Alaska.

Once in Anchorage, he was dismayed at the lack of convenient Internet or web access.

He explored the possibility of seeing up as an Internet provider, but quickly realized that he lacked the financial resources and technical expertise to tackle such a project. When Internet Alaska opened for business, Gardner was a delighted early customer.

"I wrote a small, simple windows application for fun," he said. "My goal was to build a product which was so easy to use that any computer novice would enjoy it. I wanted to market it on the web and see what happened. There was a time when I felt I'd be overjoyed to sell even one copy of my address book."

The first sale of Adr_Book happened in March 1994. Gardner actively solicited user feedback and incorporated the suggestions and requests into new releases. As interest in the Internet grew, so did the demand for his product. Growing sales of Adr_Book now over 100 monthly, led to the formation of Brown Bear Software, a thriving young Internet company with expanding products.

In the fall of 1997, Gardner and collaborator Dave Bush wrote and marketed a web-based calendar, iCal, which is designed for organizations to run on Internet or Intranet to announce such items as event-scheduling and department meetings.

"We just customized it for Bank of America in California," says Gardner. "They asked us to modify the product and we were able to accommodate the request, improving it for all users. For example, at Bank of America, different departments have their own individual calendars. But the company wanted a way to merge information from all departments into a single calendar, accessible by all employees."

After completing the customization for Bank of America, Brown Bear could-incorporate this capability into its web-based calendar, making it standard for all users.

Marketing Strategies

Since iCal is a web-based product, most of Brown Bear's marketing is conducted on the web. "The challenge is ensuring that the product comes up reasonably high on a search list," Gardner says. "This is an ongoing effort, and we have to modify our strategies...