Netvantage Marketing started simply enough—with a “business plan” sketched out on a paper napkin over lunch at Sultan’s restaurant in Downtown Lansing.

It was then and there that Joe Ford and Adam Henige, at the time colleagues at Spartan Internet Consulting, took the first steps toward what has become, literally, an award-winning partnership for these young businessmen. They were recently recognized as emerging entrepreneurs at The Greater Lansing Business Monthly’s 2010 Entrepreneurial Awards.

Joe Ford was born in upstate New York but chose to attend college at Michigan State University. He says, “I was attracted to MSU because it is a Big Ten school, and I wanted that whole experience and also because my degree program, telecommunications, offered a great education in that field. I graduated from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications with an emphasis in information technology management.”

Ford says, “I came from a hockey family; my father coaches and my brother works for the National Hockey League. At MSU, I worked as a student manager for the team during my undergraduate years and then went to work for the department of intercollegiate athletics after I graduated. I moved from there to take a position as assistant director of MBA admissions. While I was happy with the job, it involved a lot of travel. My wife and I were starting a family, and I wanted to be home more. In 2005, I started working with Ryan Vartoogian at Spartan Internet Consulting as a senior Internet strategy analyst.”

Vartoogian was a 2008 Entrepreneurial Award winner.

“Ryan was a great person to work for. He started his own company and succeeded, and it was an inspiration to us,” Ford continues.

Adam Henige graduated from Grand Valley State University and took a position with an agency in Rochester, New York, where he managed the production of promotional campaigns for clients such as Kodak and Bausch & Lomb. His next move was to East Lansing and MSU, where he earned an MBA in marketing.

Ford recruited Henige into the MBA program and later, when Ford went to work at Spartan Internet Consulting, recruited him again to work there after graduation.

Henige says, “At Spartan Internet Consulting, we worked on a wide range of IT projects with a variety of clients.”

Then came the day Ford and Henige were having lunch.

Henige says, “We were talking casually about the idea of a company that focused on one core IT competency and what that company might look like. I think the thought struck us at the same time: ‘What would it take to do this?’ We grabbed a napkin and started writing down the first ideas and details about what later became Netvantage Marketing.”  The company was formed in March 2008 and was operational by May 2008.

Henig says now, “It was definitely a risk. We both took out personal lines of credit for financing and started out in a 300-square-foot office, sharing space in Okemos with a mortgage company—and with zero clients. It was 10 months before we had a profitable month.”

Since then, the company has grown, completing projects for more than 60 search marketing clients. Netvantage currently serves over 20 clients on an active retainer. Clients have ranged from large organizations like DTE Energy, Hyundai North America, University of California at Berkeley, MSU and others to small businesses like Dusty’s Wine Cellar. During the past two years, there’s been a tremendous increase in revenue and Netvantage is poised to continue that growth. In 2009, they moved into an 1,800-square-foot office all their own.

The company was formed to serve a high demand area in the marketplace by firms looking for improved ways to market their business through search engines.

Ford says, “We’re ultra-focused on our core competency. Everyone knows that their business has to have an Internet presence. When a client or customer uses a search engine like Google, an organization has a huge advantage if their name comes up on the first page. We help make that happen.”

Says Henige, “We help our clients increase their positioning on search engines. We help them develop a website that will bring them to the top of the page when clients and customers are searching for goods or services.”

While this is the largest part of their business, the two also work on paid search management—those sponsored links that appear on a search engine’s first page.

The third service they provide in their area of expertise is Web analytics, which Henige explains this way: “Web analytics helps us look at the way people behave on the Internet. We are able to track where visitors come from, what steps they take through the site and what actions they take before they leave. We work with our clients to understand the goals of the site and to measure and improve the results.”

While the team isn’t in the business of designing websites, they are able to help their clients through the process to attain the best results. In further support of this effort, they are partnering with design firms and advertising agencies like ICS Marketing Support Services, Traction, Artemis, Nicholas Creative, Web Ascender and others.

Says Ford, “Our goal is not only to provide the best technical support but also to build good relationships. Some computer companies don’t value that face-to-face interaction, but we feel it’s important in serving our customers in the best way we can.”