Bill Bultas is one of those rare individuals whose well-known puzzle website, Puzz.com, not only survived the dot-com bust seven years ago, but actually thrives today. We talked with him about his online successes, GAMES magazine, and being smarter than 99% of the rest of us.

Puzzle Monster: How long have you been running Puzz.com?

Bill Bultas: I had a web page with puzzles dating back to 1996, and began to do more with it in 1997. From 1998 and onward I have been full time in the web business, with my wife joining full time at the end of 1999. We ran an affiliate network for a few years, and have in more recent years focused on e-mail newsletter marketing. But the puzzles, games and tests have always been a fun sideline as well as a hobby.

PM: That must have been difficult, leaving a comfortable job and making your website your career.

BB: 1998 was nuts. The internet and especially the online advertising industry were still very new, and I was one of many pioneers at that time. I was by no means a "mover and shaker" although I dealt with several who were. I would work 16 or more hours each day on the computer, while my wife held down a job at Dillard's. Even though we lived in the very expensive Central West End of St. Louis at that time, we were never once in debt due to our thriftiness, and this maybe kept the pressure off a little. Only my wife and a handful of other people believed that what I was doing would be viable as a career choice, and I had a lot of doubts, but somehow had a "fire" in me that got me through.

Scott Gilley, who ran PuzzleDepot and later A2Z Wordfinder was a big help. He was (and is) a full time engineer for NASA - a true rocket scientist! Scott had won a couple of crossword puzzle competitions in his day, one for I believe $5,000 and the other for $25,000 - he knows his puzzles. He taught me several things about web sites, search engines, and eventually turned me on to online advertising. One of the companies he hooked me up with was run by a nice guy named Irv Brechner. Irv misunderstood a question I once e-mailed him, and out of that "mistake" we started our own small ad network. Those were crazy, exciting times, and although a lot of the companies we dealt with died in the "Dot Com Bust" of 2000-2001, we somehow survived it, and eventually prospered.

PM: From puzzles, you then branched out into other areas, such as IQ tests. How have your websites evolved over the past decade or so?

BB: In 1998 I went nuts writing puzzles for Puzz, many of which were mediocre, with a few gems here and there. Since then it's been on again off again. Forever and a day my sites were extremely "plain Jane" and I received all kinds of comments about it. In recent years I have had dealings with Nathan Haselbauer, President of the International High IQ Society. He hooked me up with Tonic Group, and they gave my sites a nice facelift, new set of clothes and the works, plus built alliqtests.com for us. That was expensive... maybe one of these years we'll earn some of that back(!). I also bought all rights to 3 books by famous author Terry Stickels, and many of those puzzles appear on alliqtests.com and puzz.com. Material by Ron Hoeflin, creator of the well known Mega Test, also appears on alliqtests.com, and some items from Lloyd King are on Puzz.com. The 3 choose-your-own-adventure style dungeons on freedungeons.com were also in agreement with an RPG company known as Flying Buffalo, and a true fan and programmer was kind enough to "automate" them for the site.

The fact is that I need to get back to basics and start putting more time and energy into working on the sites. It's rewarding in many ways, and I'm due for another "on again" spell in that area.

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