Fortune Small Business 1999: “Anatomy of a Site”

Anatomy of a Site

Fortune Small Business Magazine — December 1999/January 2000

Cover Story

Search for an unexploited niche

NOT ALL of us, however, have curriculum vitae to merit a foray into the B-to-B e-commerce field. Yet as consumers, most of us have an understanding of what at least a tiny part of the buying public demands. Avoid the temptation to go head-to-head with what appears to be a toothless dinosaur, such as the Yellow Pages. Steer around the Internet monsters like Amazon.com and Priceline.com. Find instead a little corner that the great predators have overlooked.

Brad Boyle, 39, and his wife Gia, 32, of Moab, Utah, did just that. With a mere $10,000, the Boyles created walkabouttravelgear.com, an electronic shopping site for hip, laid-back adventurers like themselves. Looking for that hard-to-find toilet bag (a high-tech portable toilet) for a backpacking trek across Tanzania? Or maybe you want a towel you can squeeze dry for fast packing while being pursued by a bear on Kodiak Island? Walkabout is your site, as simple in appearance on your computer screen as Thoreau's hut.

The Boyles run their down-to-earth business out of their Fleetwood Pace Arrow rec vehicle, or “mobile command center,” as they call it. They buy their stock from suppliers around the globe. They even ship it on their own using FedEx or UPS to ensure fast delivery. The Boyles live comfortably on commissions of close to $250,000 a year and feel no pressure to expand quickly.