How do you engage cutting edge, millennial, engineering, programming and media talent for a website that creates educational programming on cooking, wood carving, and knitting and caters to the female 40-70 year old demographic? Sounds difficult at best, and to add to that, let's locate that company in downtown Denver. Difficult to build a successful company around that formula? Believe me, I was skeptical until I learned more about Sympoz (which does business under the "Craftsy" brand name) from John Levisay the CEO.

John is soft spoken and understated but has a very impressive background including a lengthy stint at eBay, where he ran eBay Motors and grew it to a $14B/year business. He knows a little about building an online business and the talents necessary to support it so you are compelled to listen to his idea even though at the onset it seems hard to believe.

His vision centers around a website branded "Craftsy" - that produces and distributes very high quality video-based instructional classes by top, well respected instructors focusing on niches such as cooking, cake decorating, sewing, quilting, knitting, embroidery, drawing, painting and photography. A typical class consists of two to three hours of HD video content, transcribed, annotated, supported with book marks and note taking capability and ranging from beginner to master level expertise in the given field. The studio quality film is shot onsite at the Craftsy studios in Denver by professionals and is high quality. The kicker is the classes sell online on an a la carte basis for anywhere from $15-40/ea. That seems expensive until you realize what it would cost (in time, money and possibly travel) to get that same level of specialized instruction in a more traditional way. Their focus is on dedicated enthusiasts, or hobbyists that will pay for high quality curated content generated by subject matter experts.

They are supported by world class investors that I know and trust including Brad Feld (Foundary) and Kirk Holland (Access Venture), but if you are still skeptical, you are not alone - I was too.

Turns out Craftsy is one of Colorado's true on-line entrepreneurial success stories and very few people even know they exist. They have over 4 million registered members and that number is expected to almost double by the end 2014. They are heavily integrated into social media platforms like Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest and have over 8 million fans. Their customers spent more than a million hours taking classes on Craftsy in Q1/2014 alone and the company is headed towards over $40M in revenue this year. Their customer base is also very loyal and hooked on the content. Of those members that consume a first course, over 55% will go on to pay for the second. That statistic only improves with consumption. Of those that consume 5 courses, over 80% will go on to consume a 6th. That is a sticky website considering that each course costs north of $25/ea.

Craftsy is the quintessential example of a company that may not generate a lot of cocktail party buzz but is hitting it out of the park delivering an important and sought after service to a very under appreciated and willing-to-pay demographic. Congrats to John and team (and Kirk and Brad as investors) for creating a really cool company and adding to our Colorado entrepreneurial success stories!