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Longtime Triathlete keeps Web sites humming

Lilibet Snellings, For the Camera

Sherry L. Smith will "tri" anything.

So with the determination of an athlete and the audacity of an entrepreneur, the 20-year triathlete founded TriDigital Inc., a Boulder-based Web design and marketing company in 1994, at the infancy of the Internet.

And as anyone who has completed three Ironman triathlons knows, all the hard work pays off, eventually.

Today, TriDigital celebrates 10 years of Web service for clients from Sushi Den to Sun Microsystems, at a time when similar firms have struggled.

"We give a business a presence on the Internet," said Smith, 42.

Donna Auguste, founder of Boulder-based Freshwater Software and president and CEO of the Leave A Little Room Foundation, contracted Smith for a project in 1994 while working at Qwest.

So impressed by the "one-woman company," Auguste has called on Smith for every project since then.

"Sherry has a remarkable attitude of innovation and figuring out a way of getting the job done," Auguste said.

TriDigital, which has since grown to six employees, gets the job done through services such as designing companies' Web sites, graphics and logos, creating e-commerce Internet storefronts and providing pay-per-click search engine marketing.

"Being involved with the Internet and making Web sites is a really fun and exciting thing to do," Smith said. "It's a fun challenge for us to help companies communicate digitally."

Smith, who manages her Boulder employees virtually from her home in Portola Valley, Calif., said TriDigital differentiates itself by building clean, well-designed Web sites.

"If someone comes to a Web site and can't find what they're looking for in five seconds, they're gone. "The first impression is a lasting impression. How you show yourself visually is how people are going to identify you," she said.

Barbara McCalmon, owner of Tapestry Day Spa in Boulder, a TriDigital client, said, "People will come in here and say, 'Oh I saw your Web site and really liked it,' and that's why they're in here."

"We constantly deliver results to our clients that they're happy with, so they refer us to other companies," Smith said.

Referrals make up 80 percent of TriDigital's clientele.

Mike Levy, co-founder and chief technology officer of NorthernColoradoRentals.com did a number of reference checks before choosing a firm to design his company's Web site.

"It really surprised me that I did not find one TriDigital client that had anything negative to say about them."

Now, after working with TriDigital, Levy knows why. "They are very professional and very customer satisfaction-oriented."

"I define our success by two things," Smith said. "One, we're still around, and two, we're still very busy."

But, it's been a long road to success.

Daughter of a Massachusetts lobster fisherman, Smith graduated from Boston University with a computer science degree -- the first year it was a recognized major.

Upon graduation she was recruited to Silicon Valley, where she stayed for the next 10 years, working for various startup companies.

"We were on the cutting edge, at the birth of the Web," Smith said.

Those on the cutting edge of Internet innovation knew they were on to something.

"We knew it was a good way of sharing information in a simpler way," she said.

A lot of Smith's family and friends thought she was crazy. "I would say 'No, seriously, this is how we're going to do things in the future,'" she said.

Later, at TriDigital's start in 1994, clients took some convincing too. Smith would tell them, "This is going to be a great way to way to get more exposure, and get your name out there."

Soon the idea caught on. "It was easy in the beginning. People were constantly calling me with business," she said. "It was a different time, obviously."

Smith said TriDigital stayed afloat when other tech companies sank in the dot-com collapse for three reasons: a loyal client base, cutting expenses and an optimistic attitude.

"We kept thinking it can't be bad forever, we've just got to ride it out."

That attitude worked. TriDigital's revenue increased 22 percent in the fiscal 2002 and 2003.

"Everything's on the upswing now, so we're going to build off that momentum," she said.

This optimistic attitude extends to all areas of her busy life.

Smith, who competes in five or six triathlons per year, and is a professional coach for Team in Training, a national organization that raises money for leukemia and lymphoma patients, said triathlon is an analogy for her life.

"My life is chaotic, with a lot of things going on at all times. There's a certain way, almost like a game, to figure out how to fit it all in, and focus on each event in the appropriate way."

Smith said she put the letters "tri" in the company's name in honor of her favorite sport, and as a personal reminder to find balance in her hectic life.

"I subconsciously wanted to always remember to take the life analogy of triathlons and use it with my clients."

Caption:
This is a frame grab from a Web site developed by TriDigital for one of its clients.