Rose Hill media company had small beginnings

Mia Lee caught on to this Internet thing a little faster than most people did.

“I was working at Boeing in the late ’80s when the World Wide Web first came out, and nobody really knew what it was,” said Lee, owner of Lee Media Group. “I went to the executives and asked if I could learn about this and develop a class and teach it.

“There were no college classes or anything. You had to teach yourself, talk to really nerdy guys to figure it out. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I love it.”

Lee went on to work for several businesses and nonprofits, as a college instructor and website developer on the side, before starting her own firm in 2006.

“I knew I wanted to do it full time on my own,” she said.

Lee Media Group, which specializes in building websites, is based in Rose Hill and has eight employees, including Lee. The company also offers social media services, content creation and training for clients.

Interestingly, Lee says the company took a big step forward when she established a bricks-and-mortar headquarters on her hometown’s main drag two years ago.

“I never expected it to make a difference … but for some reason, we just started getting so much more business,” she said. “Somebody told me 5,000 people a day go down this road.”

Lee serves a variety of clients, from local law firms, educational facilities and a real estate firm to a health care agency in California.

“We don’t have a salesperson,” she said. “We’ve actually never solicited companies we don’t know or had a connection with.”

Lee acts as creative director, leaving actual website development to Tabytha Rourke, with whom she has worked for years.

“She is probably one of the best coders in Wichita,” Lee said. “We’ve had other agencies call us and ask for some programming help.”

Lee is proud to be certified by the state as a Women Business Enterprise. Her staff includes five women and two men. She hopes to add another employee next year.

“It’s been a little harder to prove yourself, as a woman,” she said. “Technology has mostly been dominated by men for so many years.

“It’s important to me to let people know that women can do it, too.”

Lee Media recently picked up 19 more clients when it acquired Netwerx Creative from its founder, Dee Dunlap. Lee said the two women had been “living parallel professional lives” yet didn’t know the other existed.

“She actually came to me about two and a half months ago, and we started talking,” Lee said. “She just wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do, but she wanted to make sure her clients were taken care of.

“She was exactly like me if I had continued on my own and never hired anybody.”

This story was originally published December 31, 2015 at 7:43 AM with the headline "Rose Hill media company had small beginnings."