10 years ago this month, the world seemed to be a very uncertain place.  The tech sector was watching the full-speed deflation of the Internet Bubble wreak havoc on the US Stock market.  Having burnt through their venture capital, small dot-com companies were folding without ever having made a net profit. The job market was glutted and venture capital monies had evaporated.  The 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers cast an icy pall of uncertainty and fear across the already struggling US economy.

It seemed a perfect time to me to start a business.

In September 2001, Cazbah was launched with a handful of people and a mission to make small business successful on the web.  Over these last 10 years we have increased in size seven fold, relocated our offices twice, cleared financial hurdles, migrated our technology platform,  celebrated 5 employee weddings and lots of births, and provided hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses with results-driven Internet marketing strategies and services.

A decade later and I find that we are still facing many of the same challenges and opportunities … the global economic instability, national debt, high unemployment and the nascent hint of a new Internet bubble.  And I am as convinced today as I was ten years ago that the answer to many of our problems lies in the hands of American small businesses.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are America’s biggest job creators, generating an estimated 44% of total U.S. private payroll and creating more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).   At Cazbah, our passion is helping these companies succeed in the face of what sometimes seems like insurmountable odds. There is a tremendous need to support these small businesses, which are doubly challenged when it comes to using the Internet to find more, new customers. The significant amounts of money they’ve spent on a host of advertising and marketing options haven’t delivered on their promises and they don’t have the resources to hire qualified in-house talent.

The business model that Cazbah began with is still the model that we operate from to this day. We work with our commercial, industrial and retail small business customers, providing them with everything that they need to succeed on the web from web site design to ecommerce services, from SEO to PPC, from email marketing to social media.  The results of our efforts can be seen and heard in the candid testimonials our customers give us telling us how Cazbah has worked for them.

Looking down the line at the decade behind us and the one before us, I’m encouraged by all the things that we have overcome and am excited by what still waits to be accomplished.   We are committed to continue to be a company of passionate people, achieving radical results by making ordinary small businesses extraordinary.

Thank you!

Charles B. Broersma
Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Although CPR/AED Awareness Week is the first week of June, Cazbah in conjunction with its customer, Cardiac Life Products, is training and certifying its employees on CPR and AED.  Why have we decided to do this at Cazbah?  In October 2010 I participated in the Black Diamond Duathlon in Victor NY.  The Duathlon is a challenging race that requires participants to run 2 miles, bike 10 miles, and run 2 miles most of which is off road.  The events of this race led me on a path to seek training for CPR and to see how many others I could get to participate.  Here is my story:

On the day of this event I was standing at the starting line where the event coordinator announced that none of the participants were to have cell phones, ipods, or anything with headphones.  I quickly ripped off my headphones but decided to keep my iPhone with me.  I started the race strong with the two mile run but once I got on my bike things started to slow down for me.  I was not having a good ride.  It seemed like everyone was passing me.  Finally I got to the transition area for my final two mile run.  My legs felt like stone but I trudged on.  The last two miles took me down a narrow trail through some woods.  At this point there were runners passing me in the other direction on their way to the finish line.  About a ½ mile into my final two miles another runner and I came across a middle-aged man lying in the middle of the trail unconscious.

After failing to get a response from the fallen man I handed my iPhone to the other runner and told him to call 911.  While 911 was triangulating our position through my phone a wave of despair hit me.  I was pretty sure this man had gone into Cardiac Arrest but I could do nothing about it because I had not been trained in CPR.  I could feel him fading and it seemed like he was about to die in my arms.  Then after what seemed like an eternity a cardiac nurse, who was running in the race, came upon us and immediately started CPR.  While she was administering CPR an Ontario County Sherriff who was directing traffic for the event showed up at the scene with an AED  (Automated External Defibrillator) and attached it to the victim.  The AED shocked the man and the AED unit told the nurse and two other runners, who were trained in CPR and had shown up on the scene, to continue administering CPR.  Shortly after this we were able to get the victim off the trail to an ambulance that was waiting to take the victim to the hospital.