
In 1996 when Tom Snyder launched Trivera 1.0 (or Websight Solutions as the company was known back then), 85 percent of CEOs believed there was no use for the internet. Given the abundance of technology in our lives today, it is hard to imagine the leap of faith it took to launch a website development company at a time when the first smartphones were still a decade away and the only way to get online was with a desktop computer connected via a landline modem.
But for Tom, there wasn’t any doubt.
After a long career as a music/program director and on-air personality with several Milwaukee-area radio stations, he’d gone on to work for a software company, and was introduced to this new thing — the world wide web.
So excited about the possibilities, he started as a one man shop, working 20-hour days, meeting with clients by day, and designing and programming their websites in his basement at night. A year later, he hired his first employees: a web designer, then a programmer and a salesperson. A few months later, he convinced his wife, Marjie, to join the company “with one condition,” she said, that the company move out of their basement and into real office space.
25 years later, the Snyders’ small company has grown to become a full-service digital marketing firm whose current clients include General Mitchell International Airport, Strattec Security Corporation,…