Found in the Clouds

In 2005, he and some partners, seeing an opportunity to help small businesses take better advantage of the Internet, founded SMBLive to sell online business platforms via channel partners, including British Telecom, Best Buy, and Canada’s Telus. Its first products included Workspace, an online document-trading platform. In 2007, it developed BT Tradespace, which helps businesses to be found on line and connect with customers.

Thousands have signed up in the months since CloudProfile’s launch. Hawkinson expects to reach “hundreds of thousands” of small businesses in the coming year.

Hawkinson says he’s been so happy with the local design and technology talent he’s encountered that he would like to use Mural Ventures, the umbrella company over SMBLive and CloudProfile, to seed Twin Cities tech and design firms. The repatriated Twin Cities resident has found that the area “has great tech and design talent,” and would like to help launch that talent’s business ideas.

“I really enjoy building small businesses,” Hawkinson says. The next CloudProfile, perhaps?