When Heather Lanzone and Melissa Brown met three years ago, they each had year-old sons, entrepreneurial spirits, and aspirations to keep their business skills fresh while remaining at home with their children. They became fast friends, kicking around ideas to work from home while their children played together at the park.


From the depths of those brainstorming sessions, Front Door Seafood Inc., an Internet-based seafood delivery business in Spokane Valley, was born.


Every womans goal in this life is to try and figure out this balance. Because we know each other, and know our strengths and weaknesses, it helps with the balance, Brown says.


Front Door has been up and running since March, with Lanzone and Brown handling all aspects of the business themselves, from accounting and marketing to delivering frozen seafood monthly to customers, mostly individual families, in the Spokane area who order from their Web site, www.frontdoorseafood.com. Their first month was their biggest, in terms of sales, but the business has received orders from about 100 customers in its first few months of operation.


Working as a team has worked for Brown, 32 years old and a Spokane native, and Lanzone, 34, who hails from Montana.


Its motivating, like having a workout partner, Brown says.


Browns strength is marketing, she says, and Lanzone is the planner, handling operations for the business. Their relationship is fluid, with the childreneach now has one son and one daughter of similar agesplaying at one house or the other while the other mother dives into business tasks. Occasionally, they say, they get a chance to share a business lunch as well.


The two families have a depth of collective entrepreneurial spirit to draw on. Browns husband is a Spokane Valley firefighter and owns his own business, Keystone ICF Construction LLC. Lanzones husband owns Northstar Sea Foods Inc., of Spokane, which supplies the restaurant-quality frozen seafood the women sell in their business. Lanzone cut her business teeth owning a flower shop in Stevensville, Mont.


The two studied business marketing information and invested in a Web site for the business, frontdoorseafood.com, deciding early on to use it as a virtual storefront. Not only does the Internet storefront help keep overhead downtheir physical office space is located in Lanzones hilltop home in Spokane Valleyit also allows the company to cast a broader net for customers, and they hope to begin online shipping outside of the Spokane area soon.


Front Door Seafoods menu is deep, too, with a selection of finned and shelled ocean fare from mahi-mahi, red snapper, and tilapia to mussels, clams, and lengthy king crab legs. The company also offers sushi-grade fish, and organic chicken for landlubbers. Customers can order items separately, or they can choose from a number of variety packages listed in the business online offerings. The minimum order is $75, and Lanzone says orders average about $125. For about that amount, a person could expect to buy a 10-pound case, or about 20 pieces, of salmon, for example, she says.


The women refer to their catalog as a menu, to emphasize the quality of the product, and offer recipes and cooking tips alongside the frozen catch.


Front Door buys its products wholesale from Northstar, which supplies about 250 local commercial customers with its flash-frozen seafood, storing its product in a local frozen food storage facility.


Lanzone and Brown personally make the deliveries once a month, but are mulling the idea of using a shipping service when Northstar moves to a larger facility in Airway Heights, where they plan to rent storage space. They are in no hurry, however, to switch to the less personal shipping method for local deliveries, they say.


For now we like that one-on-one contact, Brown says.


So far, a handful of Front Doors customers have ordered seafood each month. Lanzone says ultimately she hopes to build a solid base of those fish-of-the-month customers, who come to rely on getting a varied sampling of seafood to keep their freezers stocked.


Though the Internet is the primary storefront for the business, the partners are flexible, Lanzone says. Shell take orders over the phone, mail menus to customers, and special order fish that may not appear on the companys regular menu, so long as its a 10-pound minimum order.


One of Lanzones primary interests is healthful cooking. She says shes happy to answer any questions customers might have about cooking fish. Lanzone says there are a lot of misconceptions about cooking fish, and concerns about products tasting fishy, a condition she says most often is caused by how the fish is handled between the boat and a retail store. She became interested in improving her familys diet to help combat her husbands high blood pressure, she says, and likes being able to plan a weeks worth of meals knowing she has fish in the freezer to back up the plan.


The health-related aspects resonate with Brown, too, who says shes increased her own familys consumption of fish since embarking on the business venture with Lanzone. In fact, she says one of her marketing focuses thus far is educating the public about the benefits of eating more fish. Brown says her children eat fish readily, because its just part of their meals. She says her 2-year-old will eat two pieces of fish if permitted, and shes not talking breaded fish sticks.


Lanzone agrees, and says fish is much more convenient to prepare than most people think.


What most people dont understand is its faster to make a recipe than it is to cook those fish sticks, Lanzone says.


The children are growing up quickly, and soon the boys will be starting school. The two say they hope to generate a tide of repeat business that they can ride into the future.


We want to be moms, but we want to be successful. If we can generate momentum so when our kids are in school we have something to focus on doing well, they will have succeeded, Lanzone says.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.