Checking in With:

By Susan Holly

Since last May, Southwest Florida Business has reported each

month on a different start-up business with the intention of checking their

progress every few months. This month we check in with the first three

businesses to see what changes they have made, what problems they have faced,

and what steps they have taken to meet their goals.

The Tropical Traveler, Fort

Myers

Internet-based travel guide

What’s in a name? A whole lot of Web traffic, says Chuck

Lunsford, who has registered more than 2,000 domain names that could direct a

Web surfer to specific travel information sites. Lunsford launched the first

Tropical Traveler site last February, providing information on hotels,

attractions, and things to do in Southwest Florida. Hotels and other

tourist-related businesses pay to be included on the site.

That was just the beginning, Lunsford said at the time. The

company’s plans were to develop similar sites for other regions in Florida and

eventually all over North America and the Caribbean. True to his word, Lunsford

launched the second Tropical Traveler site in September — OrlandoHotels.com —

and is working on the third, which will cover campgrounds and RV parks from

Canada to Mexico.

“We are making good steps here,” says Lunsford, eight months

after the initial launch. “Traffic is up. We are adding new advertisers. We

have had 100-percent renewals so far.”

Traffic to the site last spring was averaging about 2,500

visitors a day. That has risen to between 3,500 and 5,000 visitors a day. The

goal is to reach 7,500 to 10,000 visitors each day. Advertisers are taking

notice. “A lot of people we contacted last year, who were in a wait-and-see

mode, are calling us now,” says Lunsford. He estimates the company is adding

about three new advertisers a week.

The first Tropical Traveler site was “our experiment,” says

Lunsford. “We learned from that. We are learning from the Orlando site. The

third site will be even better.”

Now that OrlandoHotels.com is up and running, the staff will

go back to the first Tropical Traveler site for Southwest Florida and give it a

new look, based on the experience in Orlando. It will have more of a magazine

presentation, explains Lunsford. “We have found that people like to read a

magazine. People are used to that layout. We think it will increase traffic.”

Also to increase traffic, Lunsford is working on making the

site more “search engine-friendly.” In other words, when a user searches for a

key word, such as Sanibel, Lunsford wants his site to be in the top 10 that

come up on the search engine’s results list.

Within a couple of months, the staff will turn its attention

to the third site. The company hired a new Webmaster in October to manage all

the Web sites. Staff is actually down from a high of 10 to about a half-dozen,

notes Lunsford, but no less efficient.. “We are lean and mean.” He also notes

the company is funding itself internally now and hasn’t needed to search for additional

outside funding.

Environmental Risk Management/ First Environmental style='mso-tab-count:1'> Mortgage, Naples

Affiliated companies offering one-stop shopping for at-risk

properties

Steve Hilfiker’s goal when he launched his business in May

1999 was to be operating in the black within two years, and he is about to

reach that milestone. “That’s pretty good,” he says.

His strategy for the twofold business — Environmental Risk

Management and First Environmental Mortgage — was to get the cash flowing

through the environmental assessment and cleanup part of his business, then

develop the riskier — but potentially more profitable — portion, which is

obtaining financing for these at-risk properties.

The environmental cleanup work has been steady for Hilfiker.

He has 29 active sites around the state, largely for the state Department of

Environmental Protection and the Department of Corrections. He handles the work

through a force of 16 part-time, as-needed workers.

The only snag Hilfiker has hit so far has been office space.

He was operating out of a construction trailer in his back yard until Collier

County inspectors discovered that the barn next to it — which was providing his

trailer with electricity — had been built by a previous owner without proper

permitting. The county made Hilfiker tear it down. Without electricity he had

to move out of his trailer into a converted room in his house.

That was right in keeping, though, with Hilfiker’s

philosophy of minimizing overhead: no office space and no full-time staff.

“That’s what has allowed us to get debt-free in less than two years,” he says.

Now with black ink in sight, however, he is thinking about

growth. “When I get my feet on the ground firmly in profit mode, I’ll be ready

to expand.” That could mean adding staff. He is considering hiring someone to

take over the environmental cleanup business to free him to develop the

mortgage business, and he is already advertising for an experienced mortgage

broker. “That’s what it’s going to take to develop that part of the business.”

A year from now he expects to have an expanded staff

handling an increased workload. Hilfiker definitely wants growth, but it is

going to be controlled, he says. “I want to keep it very much in control.”

The Hungry Doghouse, Bonita

Springs

Family restaurant

After opening The Hungry Doghouse in Bonita Springs last

November and making it through their first winter season, the extended Pauly

family was exhausted. Not only had they run the restaurant for lunch and dinner

every day, they had maintained the other family business — Pauly Roofing and

Construction — as assurance if the restaurant didn’t make it.

So the best indicator of success at The Hungry Doghouse is

this exclamation from Jeff Pauly: “No more roofs!”

In its first year, the family-owned and -operated restaurant

has done well enough to sustain the entire family, consisting of Mom and Dad

(Caroline and Dean) and their four sons (Dean II, Jeff, Thad, and Russell) and

spouses (Cheryl, Tammy, Kristi, and Jennifer), and nine grandchildren.

Summer gave them all a much-needed break from the 15-hour

days they were putting in during season, seven days a week, but they had enough

business to keep the lights on and the air conditioner running, says Jeff. “We

have a lot of local people who come in for lunch everyday.”

In the beginning, however, the family didn’t know what the

off-season would bring, and even started a list of potential roofing jobs. “We

thought we would have to do one roof a week to keep going,” says Jeff. But that

wasn’t the case. “We didn’t have to do a roof all summer,” he says with relief.

“I’d rather be cutting meatloaf than pounding nails.”

They did continue to build spec houses — two this summer —

because they love the construction business, says Jeff. They are ready to start

on two more. But the restaurant is definitely their life now, and expansion of

that business is on their minds.

They are looking at Fort Myers or Cape Coral for a second

Hungry Doghouse, says Jeff. He expects it could be ready to open a year from

now. They also continue to explore franchising the operation.

For now they just want to make it through their second

season. They have added a few items to the menu and have hired more people,

though they still haven’t had to go outside their family and close friends for

staff, notes Jeff.

He anticipates a busy season, based on the new faces they

are seeing everyday. “We are going to be tired by the end of the day.”

Susan Holly is a freelance writer based on Sanibel.