We aren’t the first company to ship live lobsters anywhere in the U.S., but likely the only such site owned by a team of landlubberly marketers and web developers. The coveted Lobster URL was originally registered by founder Andrew Rock because he wanted his email address to read ‘rock@lobster’, but a chance meeting at the Providence Place Apple store led to the recruitment of an excitable new group of owners and re-entry of the site into the heart of the 2009 holiday gift season.

Lobster is always a cause for (or effect of) celebration, so we wanted the brand to capture the authenticity of the experience. Naturally, we sought out Nail Communications, whose work on the trademark and site design receives raves not only from the design community, but from practically every customer with whom we enjoy a direct interaction.

Driving traffic to the site in such a competitive and fragmented industry is the job of master search strategist and opera tenor Matt Van Wagner and his team at Find Me Faster. Beyond stoking the fires with doses of PPC, Matt is deploying some unique approaches to link-building that are part of a multi-part case study he recently wrote.

And oh yes, the lobsters. Our relationship with one of the largest shellfish distributors on the Eastern seaboard, the Ipswich Seafood Group, gives us access to an abundance of fresh-caught shellfish, shipped ‘just in time’ via a proven fulfillment operation.

Our business model is built around a level of quality and service that enables us to justify up-than-commodity pricing, rapid increases in monthly volume at acceptable customer acquisition costs, and a constant influx of web innovation. If you’ve got any ideas, or references to other RI companies that you think would help further our cause, drop me a line at marc@lobster.com. (Best reply this week gets a free lobster dinner.)