Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Jeff and Lisa Gliever take a moment to spend time with two of their four children, Ryan, 6, and Chelsea, 12. Lisa's hobby has become a full-fledged online business for the family.
A penchant for shopping led to a lucrative online business
Home is where the heart-and business-are
By Leigh Ann Maze
Many who start Internet businesses find themselves sleeping under their desks, and forgetting their children's names, especially in the first few years. But the Saratogan Gliever family's business has allowed Lisa and Jeff Gliever to stay home full-time with their four children, ranging in age from 2 to 12.
The Glievers connected their home to the Internet in 1995. Lisa, a lifelong resident and a 1980 Saratoga High School graduate, immediately discovered online shopping. She ordered grocery deliveries for her mother, made travel plans, and even purchased the family car online in 1996.
In January 1998, as an offshoot of her online-shopping hobby, Lisa set up a web page that functions as an online shopping mall. Shoppers on the Gliever's website, shopweb.net, can buy books, clothing, music, jewelry, gifts, cars, electronics, groceries, furniture and more from big-name stores. Lisa hoped to make some pocket change by charging a commission for all sales made by people who enter the online stores through her website. To her surprise, she made $60,000 in the first year. "It started as a hobby and turned into a full-fledged lucrative business," Lisa said. "We weren't prepared for it."
Lisa, who worked on-call for health agencies from home for 10 years, has more freedom with her online business than she did when she was on-call during the nights and weekends. The dizzying success of the website allowed Jeff to quit his job as a network engineer and join Lisa at home full-time this past June. Jeff, who used to commute as far away as San Francisco, now commutes from his bed to his chair in the family room.
With Jeff's computer skills and Lisa's creative ideas and online shopping savvy, the business "took off ahead of them," Lisa said, adding that she recently had to handwrite their account number on 14 checks because they haven't yet had a stamp made. Jeff estimates commissions for 1999 are nearly triple those of 1998.
The Glievers can now set their own work schedules, allowing time for computer classes, going out for breakfast or taking the kids to the park. They still work hard, though, keeping up with new search engines and industry changes, updating the web page and making contacts. "Many of the big companies we work with are surprised when they find out we're just a mom and pop shop," Lisa said. Jeff hints, with a gleam in his eye, that someday soon they might have an office and employees. But, for now, the computers where they work sit on a table in the family room.
Although there are thousands of online shopping malls on the Internet, the Glievers say theirs has been a success because it is not "a fish in the sea." Lisa was ahead of the curve for online shopping, and was experienced and confident with it long before most people began to tentatively check it out. The Glievers were able to find popular keywords so that their site comes up on the first page of a search. Lisa also stresses the importance of keeping the website simple, and keeps the number of "stores" in her online mall to no more than 50. Jeff designed the site to load quickly so that users are not waiting for large graphics to appear before they can start their shopping.
Jeff and Lisa, who love to go to Barnes & Noble together, now find themselves negotiating a contract over lunch with the company's vice president of marketing. "It's like a dream come true," Lisa said.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
