By LINDA COBURN Contributing Reporter Gustavo Diaz, 24, and Chris Merle, 25, are partners in iGem Productions, a company they founded in 2003 to provide, as stated in their corporate literature, a “one source solution” to businesses. Although they have their fingers in quite a few pies, the duo received most of their $220,000 in revenues in 2006 from iGem Advertising. “We started with $500 in my garage in Granada Hills,” said Diaz. Each of them put in $250. “We bought a wireless microphone because we were making a couple of scenes for a TV show we wanted to sell called ‘On the Scene TV.'” That reality show never made it to home sets but it did provide Diaz with the company’s first revenue-generating activities. The idea for the show was to cover hot clubs and nightspots in major cities, so Diaz and Merle were going to various Los Angeles venues to tape footage. In doing so, they made some good contacts with club owners and also club promoters. Owners pay promoters for each dollar taken in at the door and also a small percentage of the bar receipts. So promoters want to promote the hottest spots. According to Diaz, “We were making contacts with the owners of hot nightclubs, like Joya, and promoters learned about that and they started to pay us to get them in as promoters.” Promoting is a form of advertising, and Diaz learned a lot about using e-mail blasts and viral marketing from that experience. Expanding the firm Diaz then spent a short time working for a company called “The Firm” in Beverly Hills. While he was there he worked on Snoop Dogg’s account. Between the club promoting and his own work experience, Diaz and Merle decided to take it up a notch. “We took the next big step when we used some credit cards to fund more equipment like a laser printer, computers, a phone line and some other little stuff,” said Diaz. “We were still in the garage at this point.” iGem Advertising was born. An e-mail blast to “everyone I knew” yielded their first client, said Diaz. “Our first customer was Brave Bee Sports,” said Diaz. “They were an on-line gambling company.” iGem worked with that company’s marketing agency to design flyers, produce videos for a company Web site and put together some commercials. Diaz admits he didn’t know much about advertising still at this point. “Brave Bee was not a smooth venture,” he said. “They had a lot of problems, one of which was that they were maybe more clueless than I was.” “At the time I couldn’t speak the language of design,” Diaz continued. But he read a lot and boned up on what was relevant. “Brave Bee, they wanted statistics, so I would read up on statistics and contact outdoor advertising companies and learn as much as I could,” Diaz said. “What I would do is throw in as much of the language as I could, but I would try to speak the words that had value in themselves.” During this time, Diaz also decided it would be prudent to get better educated. He enrolled in the University of Phoenix and completed his business degree three years later. “That (Brave Bee) made us some pretty good money and after that point we started to take some investment money from some family members $10,000 from my family and $10,000 from Chris’s so we could get an office and move out of the garage.” They moved into 15,000 square feet in Canoga Tower in Woodland Hills. Their first job was to promote themselves. “We put together a direct marketing campaign that cost $4,000 and yielded $25,000,” said Diaz. “We did that three times in one year.” iGem had an all-Mac design studio, a creative room, and, “It was always our dream to have a conference room and we finally did,” said Diaz. “We called it the Granada Room because our company started in Granada Hills.” Clients include Eckhart Trailers, a company that makes trailer and tow hitches. “We re-designed their website, updated it from 1995,” said Diaz. “It’s a really cool flash website. The whole company got a kick out of it.” Another client is Oven Fresh Bakery in Glendale. “We do all their advertising including posters, flyers, direct marketing campaigns and local PR work,” said Diaz. “We do flyer blasts, we did their Web site, we re-did their menu.” Oven Fresh owner Varuzhan Nazaryan spoke glowingly of the company. “Acually iGem has done great things for me,” he said. “The first thing I can say is they are extremely smart people to work with.” Nazaryan went on to say that Diaz was always on time and responded to calls and e-mails quickly. “The first time we met, actually, I just found full confidence that they could take my business to the next level.” According to Nazaryan, his confidence was well placed. “I remember the first time I started my advertising campaign, or they started it, within a week my sales went up 30 percent to 40 percent,” he said. Other clients include “A Loyalty Card,” which produces a business rewards program, Creative Illusions for whom iGem created an e-commerce website, and Fulfillment Tech, a pad printing company that, according to Diaz, has big clients like Time Warner. “We did a video, their Web site and advertising for them,” he said. Diaz and Merle have big plans for iGem Advertising and their other ventures. “We moved out of Woodland Hills after about a year to save money,” said Diaz. They are now located in more modest office space in West Hills and right now most of their creative and technology staff accomplish their tasks in cyberspace. iGem recently was approved for a business loan that will help them expand their advertising business into larger quarters and hire more full-time staff. “We are trying to emulate David Ogilvy or Saatchie & Saatchie,” said Diaz. iGem Productions Year Founded: 2003 Revenues in 2005: $78,000 Revenues in 2007: $220,000 Employees in 2005: 4 Employees in 2006: 12