South Florida Sun-Sentinel
The Wall Street Journal Sunday
Business Technology
DOT - COMS: 4 Winning Strategies

Directories firm now is poised to grow more.

Kim Bregman and Nancy Diamond call themselves "the grandmothers of dot-coms" because they started their first site, KidsCamps.com, in 1995.

With three new sites coming next month, their parent company, Boca Raton - based NicheDirectories.com, will have 11 sites online.

They started by identifying an "unorganized niche": the kids camp market, which had a lot of camps as potential customers and a demand for the site's service, a directory.

They built a large database and ran the site like the Yellow Pages: a free basic listing for camps, with fees for links to the camps' own Websites. If a camp doesn't have a Website, they will build them one with a link to the directory, adding design fees to the linking fee.

"Other dot-coms got a lot of venture capital money and started marketing for audiences before they got a product," said Bregman. "They created a lot of interest, but had nothing to sell."

The partners, who financed the launch of the company themselves, gradually introduced related sites, dealing with everything from camp counseling job postings to a site for sharing camp photos.

By the end of 2000, after five years of building the business conservatively, they decided they were ready "for a higher growth strategy." They got "a seven figure" investment from NewTek Capital Inc., in return for a minority stake in the company.

In May, NicheDirectories.com, which now has 15 employees, will take the same business plan and attack a new niche: meeting and reception facilities for business and personal events. The first new site will be called VenueResource.com.

Bregman said revenues are on track to top $1 million by year's end. While KidsCamps.com is profitable now, the parent company doesn't expect to be profitable until 2004 because of expansion.