South Florida Business Journal- Palm Beach Edition - September 18, 1998
Setting up camp on the Web
Kids' Camps creators find their niche online

Boca Raton entrepreneurs Nancy LaPook Diamond and Kim Bregman offer this advice to anyone searching for information about camps for adults and kids: Let your mouse do the walking.

Self-proclaimed workaholics, Diamond, a former producer with MTV and consultant to Microsoft, and Bregman, who has an MBA and 10 years of experience with IBM, have created www.kidscamps.com. They say it lists everything anyone could ever want to know about camps.

They launched the site in 1996, after spending a year researching the need for a comprehensive camp site on the Web and developing a Yellow Pages-like database. The site began with 800 kids' camps listings, including information on each camps location, accreditation, areas of specialization and history.

Today, the site provides 20,000 listings of both children's and adults' camps, according to the creators. It also offers resources for camp directors, people looking for jobs at camps, and alumni campers who want to network with other campers.

The site offers information only and no recommendations on which sites parents should choose. "We're not a referral service-we're merely presenting information," Diamond noted.

While Diamond and Bregman saw the Web as a risky venture in 1995, they also saw its potential, Bregman said. "We totally believed in what we were doing. We joined camping associations and exhibited at trade shows. We talked at educational seminars about marketing on the Internet. We had to educate people about what the Internet could do."

The two women, who are sole owners of their business, said they turned a profit after their first six months in business, but declined to say how much money they made. The listings are free to any camp that wants one.

Diamond and Bregman generate revenue by designing Web sites, linking www.kidscamps.com to other Web sites, selling banner (display) ads on their site's pages and through classified ads.

Kids' Camps, which is also the name of their Boca Raton company, has a business partner, Internetwork Publishing Corp., that provides technical service to Kids' Camps clients. Together the firms develop Web sites of 50 pages and more for Kids' Camps clients.

About 1,000 clients have had their Web sites designed by Kids' Camps, which has added 300 to 400 clients a year, Bregman said. "We also sell the opportunity to link to other sites from ours."

BellSouth and Benadryl are among its banner advertisers. In its classified advertising section, the duo has just added a referral service to market camp properties. The company is planning an online market for camping gear.

Roger Popkin, owner and co-director of Blue Star camp, a 52-year-old camp in North Carolina, said his biggest benefit from being linked to www.kidscamps.com has been filling 350 counselor positions each season.

"We get from 10 to 12 requests for staff positions a week," Popkin said. His 50-page Web site gets from 8,000 to 10,000 visits a month.

In their effort to become a widely used source, Diamond and Bregman offer other non-revenue services, such as a reunion newsletter and Camp Talk, an interactive service for camp professionals.

"We've established ourselves as a reputable business," she said.

Those who get their listings free become perfect potentials for cross selling.

We stopped cold calling years ago," Diamond said. "We have so many leads, we're looking to expand our sales force."