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Denise Houseberg has helped small companies expand and become more profitable for the past 25 years. She began her career as a graphic designer, bartering her way into business and launching her first graphic design company on borrowed equipment. Her mid-western roots and spunky attitude carried her through the first lean years when no job was too small or too menial, but she eventually built MX Group, a well-respected graphics company that had a large base of loyal customers.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Denise launched MarketExpo.com in 1999 at about the same time as other fledgling online retailers, such as Amazon.com. A problem-solver by nature, she initially built an online store to help out a few select manufacturers. Many manufacturers offered a large line of decorative wall plates, but limited shelf space in the traditional retail store prohibited any one store from carrying the entire line. To resolve the age-old dilemma of satisfying consumer demand without selling directly to consumers, Denise came up with MarketExpo.com as a way to give consumers access to a manufacturer’s complete line of products without jeopardizing their relationship with brick-and-mortar retailers. Like any retailer, she purchased at wholesale and sold for a profit while all orders shipped direct from the manufacturer to the consumer.
Because Denise built MarketExpo.com as a true profit-driven business, she continued to grow and prosper during the dot.com meltdown after the turn of the millennium. MarketExpo.com became a million dollar company in 2005 and the first woman-owned million dollar winner in the Make Mine a Million program sponsored by OPEN American Express and Count Me In for women-owned enterprises.
Denise excels in seeing the big picture. She helped a client in the banking software industry, Audiotel, grow from $9 to $14 million developing a new interface for their Internet banking portal, creating a solid Reseller Marketing Kit for a check scanning product and promoting a solid PR campaign. In less than 2 years, AudioTel was approached by Jack Henry for acquisition. She was instrumental in packaging the company for sale writing a 100-page Sales Memorandum. In 2007, after six months of negotiation, acquisition was complete as AudioTel sold to a publicly traded corporation, for $35 million.
Denise now uses her flair for trying new ideas, and her experience in helping small business clients stretch their boundaries and grow in profitability. This has allowed her to build a loyal base of relationships that continue to rely on her expertise. She is well-connected in the technology and marketing arena and is spirited as well as driven in her pursuits to help others.