Prairie Frontier, LLC

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My family and I have been involved with wildflowers for many years. They have always been of interest to us and we've always loved their beauty. We have a 'farm' in central Wisconsin that has been in the family for over 100 years. Nine years ago the woods that covered most of that land was devastated by a tornado. The destruction was tremendous but what followed was... wonderful. Wildflowers that were dormant from lack of sunlight began appearing like magic. This is where Prairie Frontiers 'roots' began. We started propagating many of the flowers and prairie grasses that appeared and decided to become wholesalers. Seven years ago we located retailers in SE Wisconsin to market our product. Because I was selling to retailers (who had no clue about my product) I had little to no contact with the public who had LOTS of questions. In February of 1996 we opened the boxes to our first PC. (actually my son opened them, set it up... we were both afraid to turn it on.) He finally hit the power button... and we got on line with AOL. I began reading in Members Helping Members, learning... and things somewhat progressed from there. I signed up with an Internet Service Provider.. unlimited and continued to learn. In the spring of 1997 I decided to attempt setting up a web site as a reference point for informational purposes. I began trying HTML editors... FTP utilities, then a few graphics programs.. and on and on. We had thousands of photographs that I wanted to share with people. I wanted to show the beauty of native plants and explain the benefits they had. I signed up with Link Exchange exclusively in late spring of 1997 after reviewing various banner programs as a means of advertising on the web. The LE registration and setup was user friendly and the site contained many helpful tips on web design. The LE rating system was yet another feature that attracted me to their banner program. And using Link Exchange did increase hits! In November of 1998 Link Exchange contacted me asking for information about the site and the benefits of using their program. Microsoft was in the process of purchasing LE. They asked for permission to use the Prairie Frontier site for an upcoming press release as an example of what LE could do for small businesses. I was contacted shortly after that press release by IncorporatedTechnologies Magazine who also wanted a brief summary of how MSN-Link Exchange had improved my online business. In March MSN-LE again used the PF site in a press release. Mid-March MSN-LE asked permission for the Prairie Frontier site to be a part of their ad campaign promoting Link Exchange for small businesses, to which I readily agreed. Thus far MSN-LE, Prairie Frontier Ads have been in Time, Newsweek, US News and World Reports, Entrepreneur, Home Business Computing, IncorporatedTechnologies, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. **Update** November 15, 1999 * Prairie Frontier, LLC., based in Waukesha, WI, has been named one of the twenty best small business Web sites by Incorporated magazine's First Annual "Best Of The Small Business Web" competition.

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