Enjoy Your Meal!

What: An agency that finds music for commercials and other projects
Who: Beth Urdang and Dawn Madell of Agoraphone
Where: New York City
When: Started in 1999

Whether they're promoting computers, cars or candy, advertisers these days are increasingly seeking music for their audio-branding campaigns. To Beth Urdang and Dawn Madell, two executives who both had experience in the advertising and music industries, the marketing trend looked like a promising opportunity--so they paired up to start a business.

When Urdang and Madell first launched Agoraphone, they worked from home to develop a music library comprising well-known and underground scores from a variety of genres and continents. Today, when advertisers need music to fit their branding campaigns, they are able to license prerecorded or original scores directly from Agoraphone. Recent big-name clients like Mitsubishi, Nike, Saturn and Vodafone are helping to drive year-end sales toward the $250,000 mark.

Looking to the future, the partners, both 32, hope their company will expand its horizons by venturing into television. Says Urdang, "It's not a question of moving from one into another, but the goal of [our] company is to do as many different formats and types of media as possible."

This article was originally published in the December 2002 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Enjoy Your Meal!.