Jeff Taxdahl has sewn up a national clientele and more than $1 million in sales at Thread Logic, his embroidery company that makes logo apparel for other companies.

Taxdahl attributes the company's growth to extensive online marketing efforts.

Pay-per-click ads and other online marketing tools have put Thread Logic in the top 10 percent of embroidery companies nationwide in terms of sales, while bringing the digital age to a largely local, mom-and-pop industry that saw sales fall by more than 20 percent last year. In contrast, Thread Logic posted a 25 percent jump in revenue last year to $1.1 million, building on consistent double-digit increases since Taxdahl founded the company in 2002.

Taxdahl's story resonates even more with these recessionary, job-shedding times because he founded Thread Logic after getting laid off from a marketing management position in 2001.

Taxdahl had thought about starting his own company when he was in college, getting an undergraduate degree in marketing from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and a master's in marketing education from the University of Minnesota. The idea had less appeal as he advanced in his career, got married and started a family.

'In control of your destiny'

Getting laid off, while a shock, made him reconsider taking that entrepreneurial risk.

"It was definitely making lemonade out of lemons," Taxdahl, 46, said. "I said, 'Here's my chance, here's an opportunity to take control of what I'm doing.' Being an entrepreneur, being a small-business owner, you're in control of your destiny. The company succeeds or fails largely on what I do. I wasn't afraid of failing."

Taxdahl did marketing consulting, helping small business contacts with their marketing programs. He eventually decided he should turn his marketing work into a company. He chose embroidered logo apparel as the vehicle for his marketing efforts because he had often bought such items in his past jobs.