In early 2006 when R.A. Burrell launched his Internet marketing firm, Internet Honey, in the large remains of a former dairy farm near downtown Colorado Springs, the space didn't quite fit the business.

The building was "vacuous," Burrell recalls - too big for the company's staff of two.

Now Burrell's 104 S. Weber St. digs are busting at the seams, with a staff of 10 - most of whom, on a recent Wednesday afternoon, were chatting and laughing around a foosball table - and three open positions. He's even bought the loft property next door, which he plans to use for office space, a bathroom equipped with shower ("to wash up after bike rides") and a fully stocked kitchen: an invaluable set-up point for Burrell's popular barbecues.

Businesses of the Internet boom age, and the laid-back office culture associated with them, are not standard in Colorado Springs. Such enterprises are usually on the coasts: the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., or Internet startups in Seattle, to name a few.

Internet Honey, with the motto "you attract more bees with honey," begs to differ. By starting his business in the Springs, Burrell hopes to prove that fun, friendly and competent businesses can exist alongside in a city known for its familycentric culture.

Internet Honey works with clients from the tourism, e-commerce and media industries to enhance and develop their online promotional materials. For example, Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak, the local convention and visitors bureau, used Internet Honey to increase Web hits through banner ads and search engines. The bureau also used Internet Honey to develop a social-networking site for visitors to upload photos and advice on the area. For another client, Paper Direct, Internet Honey reworked its Web site so clients could customize orders online and save the results.

Colorado Springs wasn't always an obvious endpoint for Burrell. Though he attended Fountain Valley High School, he spent most of his formative years in Texas, earning a B.A. from Texas A&M and an MBA from the University of Texas.

In 1996, he opened an Internet marketing firm in Dallas, living out the "go-go crazy days" of the Internet boom. When his company went public, Burrell sold his shares and cashed out, heading to the Springs in 2001 in search of better schools and a good place to raise his children.

"It's tough to be us in this town," Burrell said. Sitting on a checkered couch in his corner office, with a bike rack adjacent to his desk, Burrell notes that Colorado Springs has no citywide wireless network, for example, making it difficult to conduct brainstorming meetings in coffee houses or outside. The staff is constantly traveling to conferences to keep tabs on industry news. A lack of downtown bike lanes often cuts lunchtime rides short, Burrell said.

John Seaverson, who started the Colorado Springs Young Professionals, a social group for workers in their twenties and thirties, said formality is the norm in local office culture.

"People here, it's a little tougher to break into their systems and their cliques," Seaverson said. "I have friends in Denver and Boulder who would never start a business here just because of that image."

Still, Internet Honey plans events to keep the staff fresh - camping, horseback riding and barbecues are annual events. The group is planning an office rafting trip this month.

Attracting staff is the hardest part, Burrell said, adding there are few people with experience in Internet marketing who are located, or willing to relocate, to Colorado Springs.

"We don't hire for what they can do," he said, "we hire for who they are and then train the bejesus out of them."

Clients say they are pleased with the staff, and the results of Burrell's decidedly uncorporate culture.

"It doesn't feel like work!" said Alice Munro, Internet marketing director for Paper Direct, which used Internet Honey for a Web site redesign and regular consultation. "It's always pleasant to work with them."

Andy Neinas, who operates Echo Canyon River Expeditions, one of Internet Honey's first clients, puts it bluntly: "Customer service is dead. Internet Honey has that, they're extremely capable and they're good people to work with, they're smart and personable-they're just the kind of people who you want to go to lunch with."

The company relies on a personality chart similar to the Meyers Briggs test. This test is given to most clients, and every team memberincluding the boss. Burrell is proudly "high extroversion/high dominance," which Burrell translates to mean, "the Steamroller: I'm gonna make you agree with me, but you're gonna feel good about it."

It's an apt metaphor:

"We're not a young company, but we're young at heart," Burrell said.