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In 2001, Joshua Smith got sick of leaving his home in Arkansas to work part of the year on the oil rigs in Prudhoe Bay, AK and decided to devote himself full time to selling supplements on the Web.

"Actually, I had a friend who owns a sports supplement company here in Fayetteville and I asked him if I could sell some of his products online. He allowed me to do that and it just kind of grew from there," says Smith, CEO of My Supplement Store.com (http://www.mysupplementstore.com), a $2.5 million-a-year operation that markets body building, health and sports supplements.

"I was operating out of the back room of his store for probably a good year or two," he notes.

During that time, Smith taught himself about search engine marketing from a book and decided to move out his own, funding his start-up with a few hundred dollars of his own money, he says.

The company now sells more than 3,500 different health, bodybuilding and sport supplements from over 250 manufacturers, all at deeply discounted prices with free shipping and a price matching guarantee.

Smith notes his site is staying away from offering sports equipment since that might cut in on his friend's business.

Although it worked in the beginning, Smith says he's not that impressed with SEM, even though a lot of other online marketers almost swear by it.

"Pay-per-click has never has converted that high," he says, noting that other vehicles such as shopping portals like Bizrate, NextAg and Yahoo Shopping have brought in conversion rates of between 6% and 9.5%. Going forward, Smith thinks his firm can clear at least $3 million by next year and is also moving into manufacturing supplements through the company's NRG-X Labs operation.