CEDAR FALLS -- A little more than a year ago, Northern Iowa students Ben Frein and Dustin O'Leary overheard their girlfriends complaining about the price of naval jewelry. Even the cheapest belly button rings were selling for around $20 each at local retailers, and O'Leary and Frein suspected that they could sell them for less.

After doing some research, the duo decided to start selling belly button rings through an e-commerce site called BellyBling.net. They purchased the rings from a wholesaler, and were able to sell them for about half the cost of retailers because they had no employee costs or rent overhead.

But the biggest savings in cost for BellyBling.net came via its marketing budget. Rather than using traditional advertising, Frein and O'Leary used a variety of Internet resources to maximize the site's exposure on search engines like Google and Yahoo! As of last week, Google statistics revealed that BellyBling.net had the second most traffic of any belly button ring vendor on the web.

"We are averaging about 4,500 unique visitors per month who look at about 40,000 different products," said Frein. He added that those were the kind of statistics that you could only calculate with a Web site giving them another advantage over traditional, physical retailers.

In just over a year, Frein and O'Leary said that their initial investment in BellyBling.net had produced a 3,000 percent return.

Frein and O'Leary decided to parlay the success of their e-commerce site into a technology consulting firm, but they did not have the business know-how to make their dream a reality. They enlisted the help of UNI's Student Business Incubator (SBI) program, and soon after E-Holdings LLC was born.

"The incubator helped us with our business plan and drawing up contracts," said O'Leary. "We also learned how to use (Intuit) QuickBooks. Normally those training programs cost hundreds of dollars, but we learned for free."

O'Leary and Frein got their first look at the new office for E-Holdings on Wednesday. The SBI is moving its offices into the new Business and Community Services building located on the far south side of UNI's campus starting on May 8. The new incubator will host up to 11 student-owned businesses with full access to high-speed Internet, a conference room, a kitchen and the support of small business counselors. SBI program manager Katherine Cota-Uyar said that seven businesses run by seven students will occupy the incubator when it is opened in May.

"One of the most important aspects of the incubator is that it allows start-up companies to share information and ideas to help each other grow," said Cota-Uyar. For example, Cota-Uyar said that a student is planning to launch an accounting and bookkeeping firm in the incubator. A company like E-Holdings could help the accounting firm with its Web site while receiving bookkeeping advice in return.

Even within E-Holdings there is a combination of expertise that works well together. Frein, a junior, is a double-major at UNI in computer science and finance. O'Leary will graduate in December with a degree in marketing.

"With our degrees together, we're really hit all the spots we needed for the Web site said Frein. "We use some of the information we learn in classes, but we always ask people in the incubator when we have other questions."

Until they move into their new office, O'Leary and Frein are operating E-Holdings out of an office in a trailer on UNI's campus. But so far it hasn't stymied the growth of their company. Frein said that E-Holdings had already performed consulting work for several companies, ranging from a local dentist to a multi-million dollar clothing store in California.

Even with their consulting success, the duo decided to pursue other online ventures. Their most recent concepts revolve around the online sensation Facebook. Frein and O'Leary have developed software that notifies users when they have received a message or poke on their Facebook account.

"We know people who check Facebook 20 or 30 times a day," said Frein. "So it just made sense to have an application that would automatically notify you of messages rather than having to continuously reload the page."

Frein has also been developing software to allow instant messaging through Facebook, similar to programs like AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. Facebook includes approximately 19 million users.

With the help of the incubator, Frein and O'Leary drew up a full business plan and presented it at John Pappajohn New Venture Business Plan Competition in Des Moines last month. They also received a combined cash prize of $400 by winning UNI's John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center's Student Entrepreneur of the Year award last week.

"Developing and presenting a business plan was a great experience," said O'Leary. "It gave us an opportunity to learn how to present to venture capitalists." O'Leary added that Cota-Uyar was instrumental in coaching the team on how to deliver a convincing 20-minute presentation to the judging panel.

Neither Frein nor O'Leary know what they will do after they graduate, but they plan to keep the business together - even if the owners are not.

"The nice thing about having an online business is that we can continue operating it even if we move to different cities," said Frein. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it, but we definitely hope to keep E-Holdings going long after we graduate."

Companies interested in contracting E-Holdings could contact the company at sales@eholdingsllc.com.

Contact Drew Andersen at (319) 291-1418 or drew.andersen@wcfcourier.com.