Small Business Builder: Secure Web Sites
April 17, 2002 -- Yes, you can create your own E-business Web site. With no experience … no waiting … no jargon … and almost no money.
A very small company has created a very easy way to put your business online … right now, if you like. All you need is a computer with Windows 98 (or NT or 2000), about 10 mb of disk space, an Internet connection, a little word-processing experience, and about $25.
Using a powerful tool called the wtkEditor, you can construct your site literally in minutes. There are enough options to give your site a unique look and feel, but not so many that you're drowning in a sea of choices. It's easy to edit and rearrange content, change fonts and colors, insert images and links, and set up a catalog.
Web Sites to Go
The wtkEditor is the creation of Dan Cline, president and founder of Seattle-based Software Engineering Solutions Inc. Cline is a software engineer and consultant who thinks like an entrepreneur … in this case, like an entrepreneur who wants go online quickly and economically … the kind of entrepreneur who might say, "OK, make me a dot-com."
Originally, Cline explained, he developed the wtkEditor as part of a low-cost E-business development package marketed at one of his company's Web sites — www.makemea.com. For under $300, SES will build a site in just a few days. Clients get the wtkEditor as part of the package, so they can make their own modifications to their sites anytime.
But some people, Cline realized, would rather use the wtkEditor to build their sites themselves. For $24.95 you can download the product from www.wtkeditor.com and do just that. SES will host your site inexpensively, though you can use any hosting provider you choose. The software's built-in shopping cart allows you to safely accept credit-card payments through PayPal (which charges 30 cents plus a percentage of each transaction amount).
If you already have a Web site, an excellent, easy-to-follow tutorial shows you how to cut and paste content and images using the wtkEditor. One of the wtkEditor's biggest advantages, said Cline, is that clients have complete control over their sites, which are stored on the clients' own computers.
Test the Waters
It took Cline about 14 months to "build the system end to end," he said. Unfortunately, he completed the project at about the same time dot-coms took a nosedive and financing dried up. His company has plenty of consulting activity, but Cline is still seeking investors so that he can further develop the product end of the business.
The wtkEditor is a great tool for small businesses that want to test the Internet waters economically. With it you can create a site that's attractive and professional looking in just an hour or two … and add images — such as product photos — when it's convenient. Check out the sample sites at www.wtkeditor.com to see how companies have used the wtkEditor to achieve their unique online identities.
Secrets of Their Success
"You asked for business secrets," writes Susanna Macaraeg, "and I have one that I live by: selling our company to prospects by offering to give them something valuable first."
Macaraeg is the CEO of Smooth Engine, which offers a variety of business-management services. Working with strategic partners, Smooth Engine will help you do everything from answering your phone to buying office furniture and getting legal assistance.
Giving before you receive is good business, says Macaraeg, whose company offers free management seminars to prospective clients and free consulting to small businesses directly affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Smooth Engine insists that its partners share the company's philosophy.
Explains Macaraeg: "Rick Jarow, who wrote Creating the Work You Love, calls [this approach] … coming from a place of abundance rather than a place of lack. There is enough business to go around for everyone. If we open ourselves up to help others, it comes back tenfold."
Do you have business-success secrets you'd like to share? Please e-mail a brief description of your business and its successes to smallbiz@gravity.biz
An editor since the age of 6, when she returned a love letter with corrections marked in red, Mary Campbell founded Zero Gravity in 1984 to provide writing, editing, marketing and other services to small businesses. Her presentations and workshops address small-business topics from Web sites to business writing. An editor of and contributor to dozens of publications (books, journals and newsletters), she is co-author — with her sister, Pipi Campbell Peterson — of the second edition of Ready, Set, Organize! A Workbook for the Organizationally Challenged (JIST Publishing, 2001). Please e-mail her your comments, questions and suggestions at smallbiz@zgravity.biz. Small Business Builder is published every other Wednesday.