In their own words

“Three years ago we founded NorthClick on an old farm. Without a cent we moved in at Fridtjof's home and developed the online-software that now is the core of Jimdo. NorthClick distributes this software to Small and Mediumsized Enterprises who can use the software for updating their websites really easily. Short after the founding we won a business plan competition (we used three matchbox cars to explain our idea to the jury; we guess they loved that idea ;-)) which gave us approximately 20,000 USD. In combination with some basic agreements and our first customers we had enough money to move to Hamburg and rent our first office. Since then we already moved into a bigger office and have a rising number of customers and colleagues! :-)

During the last three years more and more of our friends asked us whether they could use our system for private stuff. We were so fascinated by the cool pages they created! Some used the system for pages about themselves, three guys used it to document their sailing trip from Germany to Sydney, some to promote their bands...and the feedback was just unbelievable! That's when the idea was born to give Pages to the People!”

	Why it might be a killer

Jimdo has all what it takes to be an instant hit. It has a lot of very strong features, it makes pretty sites, and it's free. In addition, it is good to make your personal page without editing html source. Jimdo has a huge potential audience since the tools provided are really easy to use, which is good for non-tech savvy people. Design addicts, like MySpace community members, are often changing their layouts almost as much as their favorite band of the moment. They currently have sites in three different languages: German, English, and Chinese. With its expansion into China, Jimdo has entered one of the fastest-growing Internet markets in the world. The number of

Internet users in China has grown to 137 million, making it the second-largest market worldwide behind the U.S., with 165 million users, according to the company.

	Some questions

How they will be able to compete with an increasing number of websites that allow users to create free blogs and sites, add content from YouTube, Flickr and Blogger and share it privately and securely with friends and family? Does Jimdo’s tool not massively facilitate design theft?