Think national dot-com companies are based out of New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley?
Guess again.
For Dennis Barba Jr., Josh Gurewitz, and Dawn Griffin, CPA, Geauga County is the launch point for their million-dollar dot-com startup, e2grow.com, which is poised to change the way that small town communities access local news and conduct business online. These Bainbridge residents recently opened new corporate offices in Chesterland and a West Coast operations center in Seattle.
"Our purpose is to bring the connective power of the internet to America's small towns and its businesses," said Dennis Barba Jr., President and CEO of e2growsm. "The digital revolution is in full stride with national and international brands, but many small and local businesses are struggling to bring their operations online. And every minute they struggle, local consumers are being lured away by the offerings of their online counterparts. We want to level the playing field with e2grow, empowering local businesses to connect with their local consumers, while providing them world class e-business tools that grow their customer base and profit center."
e2grow offers local businesses a comprehensive e-business package at affordable rates. For $12.00 to $75.00 per month, e2grow business subscribers can have their own web site, access to a news and services portal customized to their business, and both banner advertising and local directory listings in e2grow's consumer web pages.
"There still needs to be a point of critical impact for these business sites to reach the local consumer." Barba explained. "For each of our business communities, we're providing a complete community news web site as well. These sites will be the online epicenter for local community news, weather, school activities and more."
Barba added that the e2grow business strategy is to offer more than professional services to businesses. "By building the best community news sites available, we can provide an instant media that reconnects businesses with their local consumers on the net. These online 'local newspapers' will drive customers to our business sites, and we're sure that these neighbors will be pleased by the professional offerings and services."
Using the interactive properties of the web, e2grow works with local businesses to provide customers with an enhanced shopping experience. Visitors can schedule appointments online, download special discounts and coupons, review complete movie schedules, and buy products and gift certificates. With its high-end business packages, e2grow facilitates secure credit card and electronic check transactions online.
Currently, e2grow is serving Chesterland, Russell and Solon with their community based web sites and e-business services. By year's end, e2grow will rollout sites in Aurora, Bainbridge, Chagrin Falls, Twinsburg, and Hudson. e2Grow also will launch its West Coast operations with sites in 4 Pacific Northwest communities.
"We want these communities to have sites that are something special, something valued by its members," Barba said. "We're providing them a free community newspaper 24 hours a day. Local news, sports, school activities, weather, the police blotter, obituaries, town hall hearings, and a complete local business directory will be on the site." Barba added this his content managers work closely with each community to gather and deploy local information, while searching available online media to consolidate all local coverage into one easy-to-use internet point.
Barba emphasized that the community sites are updated daily. If a visitor logged on to see today's high school sports, the complete schedule for all sports, including football, soccer, volleyball, tennis, golf and more would be available with complete times and locations.
Content is not limited to community news alone. When an e2grow business subscriber logs on, they will be greeted by a customized e-MarketWindowsm. "We provide our subscribers with customized information and advice through our vertically-integrated industry portals," Dawn Griffin, CPA and Chief Financial Officer, said. "This portal also allows them to purchase professional goods and services through our professional partners at substantial discounts." Partnership programs have been signed with OfficeMax.com, TigerDirect, and Charter One Bank, with many more to come. The e-MarketWindow also is utilized to provide detailed site statistics and contact management features.
The e2grow business concept was devised by Barba, when he was working on his graduate degree at the Columbia School of Business at Columbia University. While analyzing methods for companies to bring their operations online, Barba, a 14-year investment banking veteran, found a truly untapped resource in the internet for small and micro-businesses.
Barba then founded e2grow and established its advisory board which includes representatives of Chevron, Xerox Corp., Sun Microsystems, and Columbia University. Deloitte & Touche LLP also committed to the project and continues to consult e2grow on its business strategy and market research.
The e2grow website, and its business subscriber sites, are supported by a powerful backend server system developed by Ideastar, a Cleveland-based web accelerator. Working closely with e2grow personnel, Ideastar created e-site buildersm, a powerful system that allows individual business owners to create and maintain their own e-commerce enabled web sites without the need for outsourcing to a web design or development studio.
A former Vice President of Finance for Healtheon/webMD, Griffins understands this dilemma. "This is a major hurdle for small businesses to overcome", she said. "When developed by professional firms, it is easy for initial design estimates to come in anywhere from $3000 to $10,000 for even modest sites. And the small business owner may not know how they want their site to function. With our e-site builder, businesses can run the site their way and then modify it easily to meet their ever-changing needs."
Griffin added that for a one-time $99 fee, e2grow will design the initial site for a client. She said that some clients prefer to use e-site builder to maintain their site while having e2grow launch it for them within a mission-critical time window. The average turnaround time for a site launch is 48 hours.
The entire e2grow backbone, developed with Ideastar for both business and consumer needs, was built to drive a powerful national system. "We project a professional subscriber base of over 11,000 small business sites by the end of 2001," Barba said. "By the end of 2002, we project over 50,000 professional users. 2003 will place us at over 100,000 professional subscribers in more than 900 communities with expected revenues of over $100 million."
Barba added, "It is all a matter of empowerment. We're empowering our local small businesses to succeed online. We're empowering our own towns with the connective strength of web-based information. By empowering those around us, our friends, families and neighbors, we fully intend to be the country's premier site for small town news and business connections."
About e2grow
e2grow provides online enabling services to small, local businesses and the communities they serve. The company focuses its services on 'micro' businesses (typically those with under ten employees and annual revenues under $500,000), in rural and suburban communities with populations between 10,000 and 50,000. e2grow's provides its professional subscribers with an instant web presence, consolidated access to online services, web site management tools, vertical market portals, national partnership purchasing network and e-commerce services. To enable interaction between small business owners and their local customers, e2grow provides each community with a premier online information source for local news, school information, and community events and activities. More information is available at http://www.e2grow.com.
Contacts:
Dennis P. Barba Jr.
President & CEO
e2grow.com
440-729-1774
dbarbajr@e2grow.com
Robert W. Craig Jr.
President
Craig Advertising/The Craig Creative Companies
440-338-1572
craigcreative@att.net
