When Tabitha Geary founded the first professional memory archiving business in the U.S. in 2005, her biggest challenge was finding the right words to communicate what her company does. "It's not scrap-booking," says Geary, founder and CEO of Tabitha Geary Company (formerly OK Picture This, Inc.). "We preserve and archive memories."

An additional challenge was differentiating her company from online utilities like Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery, which produce photo-books from digital images uploaded by their customers. The difference: None of the online photo-book utilities can handle non-digital images like 19th century photogravures, old platinum prints, newspaper clippings, letters, invitations, or any of the host of memory items that a family collects over several generations. 

"We're not in the photo printing business," says Geary in an online profile published by the Venture Forum. "Our competition doesn't digitize images, they handle the digital images sent to them by customers ... Archiving memories is really the best description of what we do."

Geary's business model was persuasive enough to attract nearly $1 million in angel financing in 2006. She used the money to invest in scanning equipment, servers, hardware for handling large digital files, and an inviting, comfortable showroom and offices.

The business has benefited from national media coverage, positive word of mouth and extensive repeat business. "Baby boomers are our biggest market right now," says Geary. "They're preserving the memories of three generations – their parents, their own, and their children." Another growth market consists of younger parents, especially moms wanting large-format pieces – typically wall art – that celebrate and commemorate a child's sports and school activities or a family event.

Geary's strategy for building a national brand centers on understanding, profiling and building strong relationships with customers. "If people are going to trust us with their memories," she says, "we'd better have a long-standing relationship with those customers."