He put his skills to task in 1998, founding Main Advantage Technology Services as the IT consulting division of a local CPA firm, Main Amundson & Associates.

"Because we were with Main Amundson, we have a strong business background, which separates us from most of the techno geeks," said Barclay, who added that his foray into the field was serendipitous. "It was one of the happier accidents you can imagine. I worked as a network administrator with the firm in the mid-'90s during the advent of the Internet era and as many of the firm's clients found out about Internet connectivity and e-mail, which was the new thing, it evolved as the technology consulting department. It's been an interesting ride from the onset, and the main investment was just an awful lot of blood, sweat, tears, overtime and growing pains, but I had it easier than some start-ups because I shared office space and it was just me."

Main Advantage has been a standalone company since 1999 and has grown to eight employees. Barclay said the company functions as an outsourced IT department.

"Las Vegas has so many growing small businesses and our target customers are businesses with five to 150 users that rely heavily on technology, but are not large enough to have an in-house IT staff," he said. "We help our clients understand and manage all of their technology issues, starting with the software and hardware that their staff needs to do their jobs, and working backward to their network infrastructure, telephone system, data security, and the voice/data services that connect them to the outside world."

In order to grow the company, Barclay said he recently branched out into Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a technology that recently became affordable for small businesses. In fact, Barclay referenced a study by Info-Tech Research that indicated 50 percent of small to mid-size businesses expect to rely on VoIP by 2008.

"Typically with phone systems you call a phone guy who goes into a dark closet with his special mystery tool and with VoIP that goes away," he said. "Using a VoIP system doesn't necessarily mean that your conversations go over the Internet, it just means that your voice messages no longer need their own dedicated set of cabling. They can use the same Ethernet network that your computer system does. It also dramatically reduces telephone system costs and long distance costs. If you're a new business putting in a phone system, or replacing a system you've outgrown, VoIP is the way to go."

Main Advantage has about 80 clients, mostly law firms, engineering firms, accounting firms and construction companies, Barclay said.

Clients include Dickinson-Desjardins, CPAs, which has been working with the company for about five or six years, according to partner Richard Dickinson.

"They were in our building and they were originally affiliated with another CPA firm and we do not have any talent in the area of IT," he said. "All our systems have all the latest bells and whistles and we consider ourselves on the cutting edge of the accounting technology world. We attend annual information technology update programs, and we're ahead of the curve by a year for the most part."

He went on to say that the employees are friendly and knowledgeable with a strong focus on customer service.

"They have a very good bedside manner," he said. "They don't talk over your head or overburden you with their opinion and they do a good job of asking what your needs are and what your budget can afford. They seem to be really down to earth people making good recommendations of what you need as opposed to what is easiest for them or is most expensive."

Barclay said challenges to launching Main Advantage included learning the realities of the business world, such as human resources, payroll, taxes, banking and advertising.

"You wear a lot of hats at the beginning," he said. "One moment I have to play banker and 10 minutes later I have to put on my customer service hat and calm down a customer then put on my sales hat, then my HR hat and deal with a problem employee. As you grow it gets easier because you have more people to wear the hats."

He said employee recruitment is also a challenge, although he has successfully utilized the services of a staffing service, Tec Systems.

"The hardest part is finding people who know the technology and can function in a business profession," he said. "A lot of youngsters can wrap their brain around the technology but to function in the environments we work in, such as law firms and accounting firm, is harder. You have to have people with a strong customer service attitude and that's rare among geeks."

Barclay said Main Advantage grew slowly and organically, with much of the growth resulting from word of mouth and referrals from relationships with CPA firm.

"We're not the sort of service you can really advertise or expect Starbucks to call you and say 'take over my network and have access to all of our critical information,'" he said. "But we don't try to be all things to all people and we stick to what we do best."

He offered the following advice to other small business owners and start-up companies.

"Don't underestimate how much work it will be," he said, adding that Main Advantage hopes to soon open offices in Utah and California and already has a presence in Phoenix. "If you think it means not having a boss you're wrong, because every one of your customers becomes your boss and the only secret to success is making realistic promises and keeping them. There are not enough people who do that these days."