CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

Both Blackney and Kraus, whether consciously or unconsciously, followed Godin's advice for marketing, tailor made for the bootstrapper who can't afford to reach the masses immediately anyway.

In fact, taking any other approach may be a waste of time even for well-funded entrepreneurs, as Godin explains:

Designing ANYTHING for the masses is silly. Why? Because the masses don't buy stuff any more. The edges do.

Kraus insists in an introductory e-mail that his product encourages "a healthy alternative to all the in-your-face political statements that push people away from each other..."

But it's hard to imagine Bush supporters getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about an image depicting the President impaling himself on a samurai sword as one of Kraus's commissioned pieces of artwork does.

Blackney too admits "We will be taking on increasingly edgy fare as time marches by."

CONTINUED NEXT POST