Dan Osborne didn't look nervous plugging his new business on network television earlier this month.

But that's not how he recalls his June 11 appearance on "Good Morning America."

First, he had a bad case of cottonmouth while talking about his Manheim-based CarTango.com — a Web site for women car buyers.

And second, interviewer Gigi Stone asked different questions from the ones the show had given him to rehearse with his publicist the night before.

But he's not complaining.

"It was a great opportunity," he said, and just part of a whirlwind of activity he's been involved in since launching the Web site in February.

Besides the appearance on "Good Morning America NOW," the cable-broadcast third hour of ABC's talk show, he's appeared on CW11, which has a large television audience in New York and New Jersey, and has done several radio and trade-magazine interviews.

Good Housekeeping's Quick & Simple magazine has also named CarTango.com its "Website of the Week."

The two New York public relations firms that have been helping him publicize CarTango.com have great contacts, Osborne said, plus the concept of helping women car buyers makes a compelling story.

Women look at the car buying process as a frustrating old dance, Osborne said. CarTango is a new twist to that old dance.

More than 50 percent of all car purchases are made by women, he said. They influence more than 80 percent of car-buying decisions and have veto power over 95 percent of car purchases. Yet, 75 percent of women say they are uncomfortable with the process.

Osborne said he became aware of that discomfort several years ago when his wife, Kate, took him car shopping on one of their first dates.

CarTango.com is designed to put a comfortable distance between the woman buyer and the car dealer, and to give the buyer the tools and time she needs to find the right car before negotiating its purchase.

The site doesn't sell cars nor collect commissions on sales. It's simply a matchmaking service.

"We are about connecting buyers and sellers in a consumer-friendly fashion," Osborne said.

He compares CarTango.com to some of the social networking sites it's modeled on — such as eHarmony.com and Match.com — while making the distinction that CarTango.com is more of a social marketplace than a social network.

Chris Smiley, owner of Mountville Motor Sales, said he thinks CarTango.com is definitely filling a need, comparing it to AskPatty.com, another Web site that specializes in automotive advice for women.

If you're a woman and have done your car-buying research, "you don't have to drag your big brother or neighbor along with you" when you buy a car, he said.

Smiley attributes three of his recent car sales, in part, to CarTango.com.

"The Internet is the tool of the future," Smiley said. "It's opened up the marketplace. It's not just a drive by and kick the tire business anymore."

In the past, a car dealership's customer base was limited to people living a few miles away. The Internet is changing that. People will drive farther for the right vehicle, he said.

How it works
At CarTango.com, the buyer begins by setting up a free, anonymous profile where she can collect information about cars she likes, solicit the advice of friends and communicate with sellers.

There's a Soulmate Survey, which asks the buyer a series of questions about her personality and preferences to match her up with the right car.

There's a research tool using automotive data from Chrome Systems, reviews from J.D. Power and Associates, and video test drives for nearly 1,000 car models.

There's a search engine to comb the 750,000 cars in CarTango's nationwide network to locate the ones for sale close to the buyer.

The site includes an automated feature that continues the search for car matches even when buyer is offline.

Then there's the Let's Tango platform, where the buyer invites dealers to compete for her business.

One mistake many lead-generating Web sites make, Osborne said, is to furnish sellers with buyer leads too early in the process.

CarTango.com allows the buyer to determine that timing.

The average woman car buyer spends 17 weeks on the process, Osborne said, about three weeks longer than men.

CarTango.com is designed to fit that measured, care-taking pace.

That's not to say men can't use CarTango.com, too.

"We actually do get male leads every day from it," Osborne said. "Who are we to tell a man he can't use it?"

Genesis of a startup
Osborne came up with the idea for CarTango.com a couple of years ago while trying to sell a car online.

He said most of the car-buying sites were just lists of ads that people paged through.

"I said, 'There's got to be a better way to sell cars,' " Osborne recalled.

He had been working for Amish Country Gazebos, which is in the same building at 330 Hostetter Road as CarTango.com's office and whose owner, Chet Beiler, is a major investor in CarTango.

Several years ago, Osborne was executive director for the Lancaster County Republican Party when Beiler was its chairman.

Beiler is currently the Republican candidate for state auditor general.

Osborne said he had also done some work with local investors helping them evaluate portfolios, which gave him insight into starting his own company.

One of the first things he did before developing CarTango.com, was "visit a lot of car dealerships to find out what they liked and didn't like" about Internet car sites, Osborne said.

As part of that process, he ran a call center for a group of Long Island, N.Y., dealerships collecting information about consumers' car buying preferences.

At first, Osborne planned to hire an outside company to set up the Web site itself, but then, on the recommendation of Rep. John Bear, whom Osborne had helped in his political campaign, he hired Amy and Donovan Zimmerman.

Amy is CarTango's chief technical officer and the primary designer who has stamped the site with a feminine touch. Husband Donovan is the senior engineer. They were joined by Shaun Duffy as senior developer.

The three of them "have written miles and miles of [computer] code," Osborne said.

Osborne has also had some expert assistance from several investors who have been bankrolling the startup.

Bryant Bernhardt, A New York real estate financier who works with prominent New York real estate investors such as the Trump family, is serving as the company's chief financial officer.

"Bryant is very, very talented," Osborne said. "He has put our financial models together and has provided valuable strategic direction."

There are several ways that CarTango.com generates revenue.

Advertising is one source, as are lead sales to the car financing, warranty and insurance companies that buyers contact through CarTango.com.

Another revenue source is dealer subscriptions. There are about 25,000 car dealerships in the country, Osborne said. Any of them can have a limited free presence on the site, or they can pay for additional services.

The 750,000 cars in the search database represent the inventories of about 8,000 of the nation's dealers, he said, and several of CarTango's 11 employees are working to increase that number.

CarTango had signed up about 500 dealers before going live, Osborne said, and timed the launch of the site in February to coincide with the annual convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association, where CarTango had a booth.

"We talk to dealerships, and we tell them that consumers have made up their minds. They're going to the Internet. If you don't follow them, then you're missing out on business."

One of the companies that has become a paying customer is Auction Direct USA, which has dealerships in Victor, N.Y., Atlanta, Ga., Jacksonville, Fla., and Raleigh, N.C.

Auction Direct has its own Web sites — AuctionDirectUSA.com and WhyBuyUsedCars.com — but decided to team up with CarTango, in part, because of its model of targeting women buyers, said Eric Miltsch, Auction Direct's Web director.

The average consumer looks at 10 Web sites in doing research before buying a car, Miltsch said.

"By branching out with CarTango.com, we have another channel to drive as many them" to Auction Direct's cars as possible, Miltsch said.

Staying afloat
High gas prices and uncertainties in the economy are putting a lot of stress on the automotive industry these days, but Osborne isn't worried about how that will affect CarTango.com.

With 46 million car deals a year nationwide, there's a lot of market share out there for CarTango to latch onto, he said.

But volume will be the name of the game in determining whether CarTango.com succeeds.

"We're still very much a startup," Osborne said. "Our business model rises and falls on the amount of traffic on the site."

A major part of the company's marketing efforts are aimed at teaming up with other Web sites in revenue-sharing deals to incorporate CarTango.com as those sites' car-buying component.

A couple of sites CarTango has lined up are 9news.com, a large media outlet in Colorado, and Creative Loafing, which owns alternative newspapers and Web sites in Atlanta, Washington, Chicago and other large cities.

Despite the short time that CarTango.com has been on the Internet, the site is already attracting about 3,000 visitors a day, or just under 100,000 a month.

Osborne said he expects the partnerships he's negotiated will boost that number to about 1 million a month by the end of the year.

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Dennis Larison is editor of the business section and can be reached by telephone at 291-8753 or by e-mail at dlarison@lnpnews.com.