Daren Cotter featured in Twin Cities Business' People to Watch 2008

Publication: Twin Cities Business
Issue: January 2008
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People to Watch 2008: Twenty local executives to keep a close eye on during the coming year.

A fast-growing young company that’s gaining national attention, Mendota Heights–based CotterWeb provides clients with lists of people who actually want to receive their marketing e-mails.

Cotter says his firm has 3.9 million “members” who’ve sign up for the e-mails. His clients—including Net-Quote (an insurance-quote “engine”) and WorldWinner (online games)—are looking for consumers to do product and service testing and marketing research surveys. Those consumer-members get paid or receive other rewards for participating. Cotter touts a pay-for-performance model: His clients pay only for the responses they get.

Online marketing services is a sector dominated by the likes of Google, Yahoo, and ValueClick. But CotterWeb went from 6 to 22 employees in the past 22 months, and Cotter expects to double the size of his work force in the next year. Revenues in 2004 were $2 million; for 2007, they were projected at $11 million.

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CotterWeb featured as Emerging Company in Minnesota Business

Publication: Minnesota Business
Issue: January 2008
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Reading Revenue: CotterWeb pays people to read email offers and targeted on-line sales pitches, and makes money when client companies pay for prospects

Would you like to use the Internet to target customers and actually get them to respond? If so, Daren Cotter has a proposition for you, one that has proven to deliver active customers to the sites of his advertisers.

It's a fairly simple approach, really. He pays people to read email solicitations and participate in Internet projects. And he pays them again if they actually click through and participate on a site. He makes his money when a company pays him for the prospects that he brings to the site.

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CotterWeb featured in Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

Publication: Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
Issue: December 28, 2007
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'Sticky' Web business thriving

When Daren Cotter was 15 years old, he was given a choice between two birthday gifts: a car or a computer.

His ultimate choice -- the computer -- is in part what Cotter said inspired him to launch CotterWeb Enterprises, a firm that develops online loyalty marketing programs by paying consumers to shop online, test products, play games and perform other tasks.

Cotter began programming software in college while studying at Minnesota State University in Mankato. At the same time, he developed an interest in Internet advertising. The idea underpinnings for the company ultimately came to him in his dorm room.

"I have two core passions: entrepreneurship and technology," he said. "I started pulling those passions together."

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