A new Liberty Lake-based venture, OurTownZip LLC, has created a website that makes it easier for Inland Northwest residents who want to buy locally to find neighborhood businesses, down to a postal ZIP code.

Founders June Swatzell and her daughter, Rosa Swatzell, say they wanted to create a way for small business owners to have a free online storefront presence. It allows smaller operations or home-based proprietors to have options for listing products and services, they say, as well as have interactivity through email and social media, including Twitter and Facebook.

"We give small businesses a Web presence by providing them with fully interactive online storefronts," Rosa Swatzell says. "People say they want to shop local and go to the nearest small local restaurant or gift store, but those businesses may only have a small online presence. No one can find them. We put them on our site, and we drive business to them."

Although both assert that a free business listing option will always be a part of OurTownZip, the new business derives its revenue exclusively from a $25-per-month upgraded service, called "featured storefront," with more website visibility and online marketing provided by OurTownZip.

That premium service also allows businesses to offer what are called ZipDealz, for 50 percent off a product or service.

Just over 3,000 businesses currently are listed on the site for locations that stretch from the West Plains to Hayden, including Spokane, Spokane Valley, Post Falls, and Coeur d'Alene. Rosa Swatzell says about 150 businesses so far are using the premium service. People who use the site can search for businesses by ZIP code or by city name. They also can look under a business category.

"We intend to scale this to other cities and go nationwide," Rosa Swatzell adds. "We hope to move into other cities by this fall."

The Swatzells developed OurTownZip during the past three years from a home-based location and launched a test website in 2009, followed by a full version last summer. Earlier this month, the company moved into a leased space at 23403 E. Mission in Liberty Lake, inside the TierPoint building. It now has five full-time employees, including the Swatzells, and three part-time workers in Idaho.

It also has 12 independent contractors who market OurTownZip.com and is looking for more, the Swatzells say.

To launch OurTownZip, the Swatzells say it took a few years to secure financial backing to start the venture. Although they looked for an angel investor in the Spokane area, they couldn't find anyone interested locally. They ended up meeting an investor who is based San Jose at a wedding, and that person provided the necessary capital in 2009 to develop the business, they say. The Swatzells decline to name the investor or to say the amount of investment.

June Swatzell, who previously ran a graphic design agency, got the idea for the website about six years ago as she tried to support the sales of pottery pieces created by her husband, artist Mike Swatzell.

"He is the small business owner who is the inspiration for OurTownZip," Rosa Swatzell says. "We watched people in our neighborhood go out and buy gifts made in China, not locally, when they could go across the street. Many of them weren't shopping locally because they had no idea. This makes it possible for people to see what businesses are in their local neighborhoods."

They say the site is designed to be user-friendly for businesses to sign up for a free online storefront, and that one of OurTownZip's contractors also can walk people through the steps and take photographs. The business owner can fill out text fields, post with a few basic steps, and update information anytime.

"We made it so that anyone nontechnical can do this," June Swatzell says. "We're teaching the business owner how to use our site and how to use social media, and they love it because it's integrated in our storefront."

She also says the site can help nonprofits and people who run a hobby-level venture out of their homes. "It's an online neighborhood," June Swatzell adds. "We want to promote local business and sustain local neighborhoods."

Rosa Swatzell asserts that for many small businesses, OurTownZip may be all they need to stake a claim on the Internet.

"For many small businesses, this is their website; this is all they need," she says. "For others, this is a link to their main websites and a way to show where they all are in the community."