Lara Feltin
Cofounder, Biznik

Biznik - Going it alone, Together

Websites:

• Biznik's Blog
• Follow my Tweets
• Become a FAN of Biznik on Facebook

I spent the first half of my career life as a freelance designer and photographer. As Studio LEAF, I specialized in photographic portraiture on film. In 2005, frustrated with the networking options available for "indie" business people, my husband, Dan McComb and I, cofounded Biznik with the simple premise: business networking shouldn't suck.

Today Biznik is an award-winning community that connects more than 30,000 forward-thinking business people in over 140 countries. Members connect using Biznik's social network and strengthen relationships in person at more than 100 member-hosted events every month. In October 2008, Dan and I were named one of Seattle's Top 25 Most Innovative Entrepreneurs by Seattle Business Monthly, and included in Seattle Magazine's 2008 Power Players list of most influential people. In 2009 I was listed among TechCrunch's Top 100 Women in Seattle Tech.

Biznik is not just a tool, and it is not a place to sell. It's a community of people who share one thing in common: they're passionate about what they do and their businesses are an extension of their self expression.

Connect people through building Biznik.

The Biznik Story
Biznik was founded in 2005 by my husband, Dan McComb and me. At that time, we were both self employed - Dan as a web developer, I as a freelance photographer. Networking is crucial for small business people, but who enjoys hob-knobbing in a room of suits blindly passing their cards out to one another only looking for the next referral.? The desire to find a business networking community that both of us wanted to be a part of provided the motivation for us to start Biznik.

We held our first business networking meeting in May of 2005 and invited all the creative "indie" entrepreneurs we knew. A dozen people showed up at the ungodly hour of 7am. Our intention was to organize a group of people we could share resources with and send work to. Known as the BizGroup, the web site Dan built was a gift to the community, but more importantly it helped drum up more business for our freelance gigs. Word began to spread and within 3 months we realized we were on to something. We chose a new name (link to great story about Biznik's name); our friend Nadja Haldimann, a Swiss designer created a logo for us; Chris Haddad wrote the killer Biznik Manifesto; and Dan launched a new site to go along with it all. On November 1, 2005 Biznik was born.

By December 2005 we had 100 members. By the anniversary of our first meeting on May 25, 2006 Biznik reached 751. As our membership grew so did the requests for more features, and Dan continued to develop the site in his spare time. It was now time to start charging some money so Biznik could support itself and continue to grow. In February 2006 we made it possible for members to submit and host their own events. Those who charged an event fee, passed 1/3 of the fee on to Biznik. In July 2006 Biznik began offering it's members web hosting services for $12/month. In September we introduced a supporting membership category that provided increased visibility on the site for $10/month. By November 1, 2006, Biznik's first anniversary, we were in the middle of developing the new site we launched in July 2007. A site built single-handedly by one developer on Ruby on Rails, John Adair.

In February of this year, we moved out of our home, and into Biznik's first office in downtown Fremont, Washington, affectionately dubbed the "The Center of the Universe," by a local artist. Fremont boasts of many public art pieces, like a statue of Lenin salvaged from Slovakia, a 20' concrete troll crushing a VW bug, and the Seattle-favorite Waiting for the Interurban.

We can now boast of a team of five who work on Biznik daily: Dan and Lara - plus our CTO, Andrew Lippert; Dan and Lara's wingman, Christian Jacobsen; and our admin assistant, Jessica Kristine. This team is supported by a myriad of contractors from our CPA and attorneys, to marketing and strategy consultants.

Since our launch Biznik has won a silver in the 2007 W3 Awards, a Best in Class in the 2008 Interactive Media Awards, second place in the 2008 SEOmoz Web 2.0 Awards, and an Honoree in the 2008 Webby Awards. While Dan and Lara were recognized in Seattle Business Monthly's 2008 Top 25 Innovators and Entrepreneurs.

Biznik is business networking community for the independent business person - a hybrid between an online social network and member-driven local face-to-face events. This is a community of like-minded people who, for the most part, view their business as an extension of their self expression. Over 45,000 members world-wide and 15,000 in Seattle is a testament to that - business networking doesn't have to suck. Go to a Biznik event and talk to a room full of real people interested in forming real relationships with other small business people and you'll see that first hand. Our mission is to help each other build our businesses through networking, collaboration and education. You can host events in your own area, and participate in the community online through the Biz Talk forum and the event discussion boards. If there's anything I can do to help you to get Biznik working for you, please do not hesitate to drop me a line.

Two BS degrees from the Universtity of Washington in Art and Art History.