This month, in lieu of a staff member, we are featuring a cool new business in 15 Minutes.

Meet Stephanie Stewart, who is a partner in a new online service called BusinessHelpingBusiness.com. If you are a business/owner that has a need or you have a service to offer another business...BHB is sort of a new, unique way to “pay it forward.”

How long has BHB existed?

The idea for BusinessHelpingBusiness.com was conceived in late December 2008. With the magic of technology, we brought it to life in just 20 hours of effort over a three day period. As bad as it sounds, we went live on the Monday before Christmas.

Where did you get the inspiration for the site?

The idea for BusinessHelpingBusiness.com came about in an early morning dream. About the time when your head starts to work before your body wants to wake up, I happened upon a thought for a simple service that helps businesses to help other businesses. I actually had submitted several queries to HARO (www.helpareporter.com) for help with web content and give-a-ways for another site of ours, WISEOZ.com, but kept getting declined because I didn't fit the HARO model.  I figured there were other business owners out there that needed a means, similar to HARO, to help one another out.  This was my answer to that problem.

Can you tell us a little about yourself...background, if you have another occupation, that sort of thing?

Sure. I'm one of three partners in iThinkWorks. iThinkWorks is a web solutions company located in Tampa, Florida. We focus on providing products and services focused in and around the social web experience and online communities. iThinkWorks three partners are: Michael Reed, Sean Davis, and Stephanie Stewart (that's me). BusinessHelpingBusiness.com can be considered one of our offerings, so to speak.

What are your present goals for the site?

Right now, we just want to build up subscribers to The Needs & Haves List and keep publishing a steady flow of needs and haves. More subscribers means more needs and haves. More needs and haves mean more businesses helped. It really is a beautiful thing!

Future goals?

We are definitely considering the various directions we can take the service.  Some people have suggested offering business profiles on the site, but we don't want to become just some business directory. Others have suggested we publish the needs and haves to the site or allow subscribers to self-publish. As you can imagine, that comes with many challenges including privacy and integrity issues. What makes the list concept perfect is that we can screen every need and have and make sure what makes it to the list are genuine needs and haves.

How do you spread the word about BHB? (We found you on HARO.)

We spread the word, one business owner at a time and depend on other business owners (like Stacey at attribute magazine) to help us. LinkedIn has also been a great means of finding subscribers. Many people try to use LinkedIn "Q&A" or "Groups" to post needs and haves but with no screening it becomes a cesspool of spam. The one ad we did pay for and run was with HARO and it was quite successful. We increased subscribers by almost 1000% in one week (yes, that is one thousand!).

Was this service something that took shape due to the present state of things (economy, hardships) or not so much?

Yes, indeed.  Business owners are people too and most, like myself, are struggling in one way or another.  The economic situation is certainly a factor but there is no reason we can't all cooperate for the good of business-kind in good times and in bad.

Do you feel that right now the need seems to be great for aservice such as this?

Well, there is no shortage of needs and haves coming in!

Are you a considered a virtual company?

We are located in Tampa, Florida but basically serve the world.  I guess that makes us virtual for the most part.