Snapshot of an Underdog

Who: Chris MacAskill, 53, and Don MacAskill, 30
What: SmugMug, a photo sharing and printing site
Where: Mountain View, California

Any company that's ever been an underdog knows how daunting and risky the position can be. That's especially true if you're going head-to-head with the likes of Kodak, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Yet Chris and Don MacAskill took on this challenge when they established SmugMug, a photo sharing and printing site that had to set itself apart from its big-name competition. While those other sites were offering sharing and storage services to users at no cost, SmugMug was planning to charge a subscription fee at a time when many other internet companies were falling apart. And nearly everyone thought they were crazy for doing so.

Adding to the unique nature of SmugMug are the seven MacAskills working for the company, bringing the employee total to 29. Chris' children run various aspects of the company, from testing to customer research, while his wife handles the accounting. "It just turns out to be a great lifestyle for all of them because we're together all the time doing what we love to do," Chris says. "Work is play and play is work"

With all of this success has come the temptation to sell SmugMug to larger companies that have expressed interest. Yet every time they get a proposal, Chris says they always say no without even asking the offering price.

The result of this dedication is an overwhelmingly positive response from users. People go to SmugMug for all sorts of reasons, from showing off baby pictures to friends, to troops in the Middle East using the site to share their experiences with family back home. Chris says they constantly receive e-mails from users who are happy that SmugMug is there to keep their photos safely stored, no matter where their travels take them.

"It's the most amazing thing to have people's photos and see what they do with them," Chris says.

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