Anatomy of a Startup

In all, about 30,000 people have bought from IslandSurf.com in the last four years. Hambleton says that if even half of those names and addresses are still valid, he has a ready-made customer list of 15,000 to which to mail a catalog.

“We’ll also mail a catalog with every Internet order, of course,” he says. “But I admit that I don’t know much about list rentals, co-op databases and the like. I’m hoping a consultant can help me.”