Jim Anderson, Anchorage, Alaska Makes Cover of Inc.

Locally owned and operated LeadDog Consulting made the cover of Inc. Magazine!

Increasingly home-based businesses are being looked at as a competitive force, and some, like Anchorage, Alaska-based LeadDog Consulting, even have a niche market captured. In the cartography industry, there are only a handful of companies that are responsible for producing the majority of the digital maps in use around the world, and one of them is LeadDog, founded in 2000 by Jim Anderson. The company’s operations are extensive, having digitally mapped much of Iraq and Afghanistan for the U.S. military, but what’s surprising and different about LeadDog is that those maps are created right from Anderson’s home. Using specialized software, an Internet connection, and data from satellites, Anderson says he is able to map the tiniest details on streets that are thousands of miles away from him home base. Like many entrepreneurs, he acquired most of his skills working for another major mapping company for seven years before venturing out on his own.