Augie Grads' Web Company Gets National Attention

What started as a hobby between two Augustana College buddies in the 90's developed into a business.

Sioux Falls business, Electric Pulp web design now has a clients all over the country.

They were even part of the recent "We are the World" project that featured some of today's top recording artists. The project raised money for earthquake victims in Haiti.

And that's why the guys that started Electric Pulp are "Someone you should know."
 
Web design wasn't something taught in a university in 1996, but 14 years, thousands of hours, and hundreds of web sites later, it's what Stefan Hartwig does every day.

"You're always doing something new. It feels fresh," said Stefan Hartwig, '99 Augustana graduate.

Hartwig is one of three partners at Electric Pulp web design in Sioux Falls. Now clients come to them asking for website help, but it hasn't always been this way.

"A lot of our effort was spent telling people why you should have one," said Hartwig.

"Then we went through a cycle where people knew they needed a website but they didn't know what that meant. Then it got to the point where people really started putting their websites to work," said Aaron Mentele.

Aaron Mentele joined the team after graduating from the University of Minnesota.

"It was a find 'em on the web kind of thing," said Mentele.

Built from the ground up, they say they owe a lot of thanks to working with Guy Kawasaki, one of the early employees for Apple.

"He was their evangelist. When you think of company evangelism, it's kind of Guy K," said Mentele.

Their most recent project was the "We Are The World" website, which launched right before the Olympics on NBC.

"We built that site in two, three weeks," said Mentele.

"We launched that literally a minute before it was televised," said Mentele.

They also just launched the Spanish version of the website.

Not too shabby for three guys whose college professors maybe thought they were crazy for going into web design. Electric Pulp has also worked on websites for Ford, Hewlett-Packard, and Stephen Colbert.

The "We are the World" song and video are being sold online at www.world25.org. All proceeds go to benefit Haitian earthquake relief efforts.