InSpired Thinking
Company builds success one Web site at a time
By Janet Forgrieve, Reprinted from the Rocky Mountain News
Monday, September 15, 2008
When Michael Gellman signed his first big client 10 years ago, most business Web sites were nothing more than electronic brochures, boasting copy and pictures and maybe a logo but no real function other than adding another place to put up marketing materials.
"Back then, I had an ad in Westword and I was knocking on doors of businesses and I would say, 'Do you need a Web site?' and they would say, 'Yeah, I was thinking about doing that,' " said Gellman, founder and CEO of Denver-based SpireMedia, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last month.
When Greenwood Village-based startup eBags hired Spire to create an online luggage store, SpireMedia's two-person team moved from Gellman's house to the basement of the LoDo office building the company still calls home. It also gave Gellman and his employees a bigger stage for displaying their passion for the Web and all the things it could become.
"They were the cowboys of Web development, with high-top tennis shoes with no laces and spiked hair," said Jon Nordmark, eBags founder and CEO. "The investors I had brought in were pretty corporate and were questioning whether we should give these guys our money."
EBags put the job out for bids to three companies, including Spire. The other two, one a bigger San Francisco company and the other a Denver- based ad agency, came back with projects carrying $2 million price tags. SpireMedia won the deal with its $600,000 proposal, Nordmark said.
Ten years later, eBags has 42 techies on staff to manage and build on the original Web site, but the basic platform is the same and has scaled from the company's original seven vendors to accommodate products from more than 600, Nordmark said.
These days, Gellman's shoes are laced and tied, and the hair spikes are gone. Still, if you passed him in the street, his casual button-down shirt and jeans wouldn't likely let on that he's the CEO of a 30-employee company with $3 million of annual revenue and several hundred large companies on its roster of past and present clients.
What came between then and now is the story of a tech company that survived and grew by changing as fast as the technology that gave it its start in life, Gellman said.
In 1995, at age 24, Gellman left behind his life in New York as a budding filmmaker and began building a new one in Denver as a Web site creator. At the time, about a million people were using the Internet and most businesses had no idea what a Web site could offer, but many were starting to believe they needed one to remain competitive, Gellman recalled.
In the early days, techies who knew how to create a Web site were fairly rare, and those who could go beyond creating those online brochures were priceless.
"Back when we were getting started, it was all about learning on your own," Gellman said. "The Web was such a new technology that the only people who would push it forward were the ones who had a passion for it. I and some like-minded people had that passion for it, and every day we would learn something new."
For a few years, Gellman toiled in his Denver home, teaching himself to use the tools he would need. During that time, he was creating smaller sites for clients, largely the static sites so familiar to early Web users: They gave companies a Web presence but hardly advanced key business goals.
"At first you would just put up a static Web site and the next thing you knew, you said, 'Wow, we can actually hold data and use that data to make something happen,' " he said.
Next came moving graphics and other new technologies that allowed users to interact with the Web.
"Since then, it's been a process of taking the passion we had and extending that. Literally, the first thing we did at SpireMedia, because we were working with so many businesses and startups, we asked, 'How can the Web work with business? How can the Web make money?' and that became our new passion."
SpireMedia survived the dot.com bust earlier this decade and is growing even during the current economic downturn by focusing on the fact that its products and services help other businesses make money, Gellman said.
Also, because the company has remained a boutique firm, it can compete on price with larger firms like Accenture and other business-consulting companies that provide Web services.
"What we saw was that at one point it was a novelty to have a Web site, to have a Web application," Gellman said. "At this point it's taking over industries, and we're very happy to have had a part in that."
SpireMedia 1422 Delgany St., Denver
* Employees: 30
* Annual revenue: About $3 million
* Business: Boutique business consulting and Web development firm
* Founder and CEO: Michael Gellman
* Clients include: EchoStar, eBags, Dish Network, First Data and Toys 'R' Us
SpireMedia, then and now Business * In 1998: A brand- new Web site developer
* In 2008: A business consulting firm focused on creating Web sites that meet specific business needs
Employees * In 1998: Two
* In 2008: 30 full-time, plus a stable of contractors
Office * In 1998: Founder Michael Gellman's house
* In 2008: The entire 6,000- square-foot third floor of a LoDo office building
Clients * In 1998: One startup
* In 2008: More than 500, many of them large global corporations