Article written by Tim Krohn, The Free Press – Mankato, MN

Sometimes it’s the unexpected things that can help a startup business.

Like Oprah touting the adult “massager” that your business offers.

“Within a half hour we were sold out. And it’s 70 bucks. I’m sure it’s a great product,” says Robert Linnemann, an engaging young entrepreneur who lived in the Le Center area for a few years.

He now makes Duluth home, where he and five business partners are wrapping up the first successful year of www.racy.com.

The e-commerce site offers the full gamut of lingerie, adult toys and sex aids. But it doesn’t have one thing most similar businesses have — and that is the genius of the endeavor.

“We don’t have any pornographic images on the site. We don’t sell videos or magazines that aren’t instructional. It’s a non-threatening site people don’t mind telling their friends about.”

To be sure, it’s not the Disney store. The site has all the adult products for every desire and fetish. But it’s tame by adult Web site standards. Which was the niche Linnemann and his associates saw waiting to be exploited.

The 28-year-old Linnemann is bullish on entrepreneurship, believes now is a grand time to start a business and has a broad range of knowledge and experiences.

Raised near St. Cloud, he went to the University of Minnesota-Duluth for computer science, a curriculum which he found unchallenging as he’d been writing programs since he was 8, starting on an Apple II.

“I ended up with a music composition degree.”

Which, he says, isn’t as odd as it seems.

“There’s a similarity between computer programming and writing music. You need to focus on the overall scope of the project while paying attention to the most detailed minutia of writing notes or lines of programming.”

Music remains a passion. He’s in Tangier 57, a lounge-music group that plays in the Duluth area.

After graduation he landed in Le Center, staying and working with a friend who owned a restaurant there. He returned to Duluth and joined on as a programmer in the Racy.com startup.

While he’s become more at ease answering customers’ e-mails and phone calls about all manner of sexuality and sex aids, he admits it’s a business that still draws some ribs from friends and acquaintances.

“It’s an interesting business to be in. I’m not shocked by much.”

The Oprah moment came last month when her sex expert guest, Dr. Laura Berman, touted the Aphrodite Infrared Rechargeable Massager. “It wasn’t a great seller before,” Linnemann said. But one endorsement on Oprah and there was a nearly instant sell off of every one of the massagers in the country.

The fact Oprah does shows on sex toys, Linnemann said, is evidence of the mainstreaming of what was not long ago a seamy business.

“The pervasiveness of vibrators at Spencer’s or Wal-Mart is amazing, really. You can label it a back massager, or whatever, but when it looks so phallic, people are going to figure out the uses for it.”

Still, he says, there’s a disconnect in a nation that at once is fixated on sex but similarly ashamed to really talk about sexuality.

“It’s important stuff. You can teach abstinence only, but at some point you need protection and prophylactics.”

The sanctimony is displayed nowhere more than in Alabama.

“We still can’t ship anything to Alabama,” said Linemann of the last state to retain laws preventing the import of anything of a sexual nature.

“I feel bad for them. I have to call people and tell them we can’t ship it. Hey, these people really want these things.”

Linnemann, whose family is entrepreneur intense, including operating a string of general stores from the 1800s to the 1990s, is a passionate advocate of small business.

“With all the fear in the media and all the layoffs, it seems prudent to support small businesses. They may not grow fast, but they don’t lay off people so much either.

“I think right now is the perfect time to start a business. There’s a lot of talent out there, people who’ve been laid off from big companies.”

He said a few well-versed people can cut a wide swath in business.

“There are a lot of good businesses starting up. Americans can still make things. Still be successful.”