Tech startup of the month.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: High Tech - Brief Article

SUMMIT 5 LLC. LITTLETON

www.summits5.com

FOUNDED: AUGUST 2001

INITIAL LIGHTBULB: In starting Summit 5, CEO Robert Ogdon wanted to build a company around a team, not a team around a company. The cofounder of two Colorado tech startups that have since been the subject of acquisitions (Web-conferencing provider MSHOW and CD-ROM developer Mammoth Micro Productions), Ogdon co-founded Summit 5 with five others, all of whom were once Mammoth and MSHOW employees. "It was really a team start," he said. "Here's some people who wanted to work together, arid it was unclear what our product offering would be. The background that we all have in common ... it's all about the delivery of rich multimedia."

A year later, this egg-before-the-chicken strategy looks like it's paying off. Summit 5 has had a hand in the launch of three products and services in the past three months: in June, the kickoff of 81X, a consumer-oriented Web solution that the company developed under contract; in July, the release of Media Ports, updateable multimedia "windows" for Web sites for the professional Web-site developer community; and, in August, the grand opening of a "Web shop," a set of prefab tools also targeting the pro developer.

THE MARKET: The domestic market for Internet development tools is valued by analysts at $150 million to $300 million annually and growing. However, Ogdon sees Media Port as "a new animal," and not necessarily confined to an established niche.

IN A NUTSHELL: Summit 5 does in-house product development and contract services for outside clients. The thrust of the internal R&D to date has been the creation of the aforementioned Media Port product.

"We're trying to create a series of independent, isolated products for the professional Web publisher," Ogdon explained. The first such product, "A Media Port, is a window inside a Web...