"We see most of our growth coming in the technology sector," Wolfe said. "We plan to become more of an infrastructure company, where we play in the background more."

"I've been doing this for eight years now," Wolfe said. "If we keep growing at this growth rate -- we grew 32 percent last year, and added 32 employees -- who knows where we will be?"

According to the Direct Marketing Association, in 2001, more than 270 billion paper coupons were distributed in the United States, a thousand for each man, woman and child in America. Only 4 billion of them were redeemed -- a redemption rate of 1.4 percent. Contrast that with only 220 million online coupons distributed, with 56 percent (or 123.2 million) of them being redeemed.

"Internet coupons are more likely to be used," said Christina Duffney, with the Direct Marketing Association. "Once a shopper expends the time to look for them on line, they are more likely to use them," she said.

Wolfe said his company has weathered the slow economy well.

"Strangely, with the national economy down, we were growing. Now, in 2001, we lost money and had to lay off some people. But over the life of the company, I would say that we have had a 10 to 15 percent growth rate," he said.

"Coupon use tends to grow as the economy tightened," Duffney said, noting that as retail sales stalled at Christmas, retailers offered more coupons. "They tend to offer an incentive to consumers," she said. "They usually get the consumer to try something they normally wouldn't try."

Wolfe said he has been able to finance most of his company's growth from increasing sales and profitability, and he secured additional growth funding from internet.com Venture Fund.

"A lot of marketers are also turning to online marketing right now," Duffney said, "because of the economy. You can do an e-mail campaign cheaper than direct mail or telephone. Each medium is still valuable. We see more instances of people taking the time to find out who your target market is and then take a multichannel approach."

Wolfe's company soon will expand to Beulah, N.D., opening an office there with 10 customer service employees to start.

"I said to myself, 'North Dakota?'" said Wolfe. "But I worked with their department of commerce and they made an interesting pitch. So I put out 30 request for proposals and of the 30, 17 cities there wanted us," he said.

"I met with the mayors of six towns that we figured were the best of those, and we picked the best package," Wolfe continued. "It is a rural town, but that made it more attractive. It reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh, with solid citizens who have a good work ethic, who you can trust, who when you shake their hand, you know you have an honest deal."

Wolfe said that he didn't get that kind of response from Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh, and he laments that the city's proposed payroll preparation tax will further sour the business environment.