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Small-business exchange seeks to be a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs.
After traveling around the world for two years, Glen Ballman settled down in Vancouver, B.C, and was working for Axion Internet Communications building small-business Web sites. But Ballman kept getting calls from clients saying, "I've launched the site, but I'm not getting any business." Ballman recognized a need: to help small businesses find ways to drive traffic to their sites.
Using $20,000 he had saved up from commissions working for Axion, Ballman started a company working out of his home in Vancouver, calling it Suncommerce Corp. But, "It immediately became obvious that a central trading exchange for small businesses had to be built. And to do that, I had to create a complete infrastructure large enough to accommodate thousands of buyers and sellers. That was the birth of Onvia."
Onvia operated on a relatively small scale, close to profitability, for almost two years. With the explosive growth in small business on the Web, Ballman moved Onvia's offices to Seattle in 1998. To promote the Onvia site, Ballman conducted a series of contests and promotions and spread the word via...