Founders of Oklahoma City-based QuiBids earn an A in entrepreneurship, job creation

Matt Beckham and his friend Shaun Tilford co-founded QuiBids (pronounced Qui, as in quick, Bids) less than two years ago. Today the Oklahoma City-based Internet auction company has more than 100 full- and part-time employees.

“We've had tremendous success in a short period of time,” Beckham said. “Our revenues are growing, we're profitable, and we're working on going international. We make up more than 80 percent of the penny auction market cap.”

How did all this come about during one of the most painful economic cycles in memory?

“We knew marketing, finance and software development,” Beckham said, “but we had to figure out everything about operations and all that comes with that. When the company is operating at a scale no one has ever done before, there is a lot of figure out.”

But figure it out they did.

The two founders started development in May 2009 and by summer had recruited three friends and Beckham's brother to fill out the founding team. The company launched in the fall of 2009 and has never taken outside investment, satisfying capital needs through bootstrapping.

“A lot of little things that we do right add up to a large difference in us and our competition,” Beckham said. “We run the site more effectively, and we are better at user education and marketing. We manage our costs very well.”