Susan Williams DeFife's education in how to finance a company began at a Tower Club lunch one day in 1996 with John Burton, a potential investor.

DeFife, chief executive of Womenconnect.com, a World Wide Web site for professional women, recalls Burton saying: "Is this a social cause and are you asking me for a donation? Your biggest problem is going to be being taken seriously."

She remembers thinking: "This is a 'Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus' conversation."

This from a woman who has built a business around communication and a Web site that is on the early wave of revenue-producing "communities" on the Internet.

Womenconnect.com aims to bring women with like interests, including career, politics and money, to a forum where they can find information, share thoughts and buy products. It's a "virtual community" where women can gather to talk to each other through discussion groups or just read articles of common interest.

But it's also a business – Womenconnect.com makes money by taking a percentage of sales by retailers that advertise on the site. Revenue in 1998 is expected to be $600,000, said DeFife, who predicts 1999 revenue will hit $2.5 million. The four-year-old firm expects to turn its first profit in early 1999.

One of the words people use to describe DeFife is tenacious, and she kept going back to Burton, who is managing director of Updata Capital and a former chief executive of Legent Corp., with revised business plans and more numbers. And he kept criticizing and saying no, DeFife said.

Today Burton owns 3 percent of the company.

"In the end I got his money but what I got along the way was more valuable," she said.

DeFife says Burton was bullying her, eventually for her own good, to cough up the reason why the women's market is not just a nice, fuzzy Internet niche but an untapped business market that reaches the main buyers of households. It's something she still has to explain to investors, advertisers and her audience, the three groups that keep Womenconnect.com on the Web.

"I did beat her up a lot," Burton said. "It's better to get a fast education the tough way. She was resilient."

Burton said his original concerns were that DeFife, a former television and radio reporter and leader of women's advocacy groups, didn't know enough about valuations, revenue models and economics. But she had something else, and learned the rest. "You don't come across entrepreneurs like Susan very often," Burton said. "She's coachable, smart and well-connected."

The process taught DeFife much about the venture capital-raising dance. She spent years lobbying Burton and other investors to support her venture, explaining the business model and why it would work. "You have to have an unending belief in what you're doing because so many people will beat you up," DeFife said. "It's a humbling experience." It's easier to talk about those times now that Womenconnect.com, which now has 16 employees, has moved from the sun room next to DeFife's kitchen to real offices on Greensboro Drive in McLean, and has jumped from 20,000 page views a month a year ago to 1 million last month. The site, aimed at female professionals and business owners, is not about lipstick and astrology.

Instead, hot topics on Womenconnect.com are business, career, politics, health and money. The audience is primarily women ages 30 to 50, with an average income of $60,000. About half have children, 46 percent are professional women and 35 percent own businesses.

The two most popular chats on Womenconnect.com have been a conversation with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ann Winblad and a talk about how to sell to the federal government.

On the other hand, competing sites geared toward women have quite different content. A sample feature from Women's Wire (www.womenswire.com) read: "I love him with all of my heart but I don't want to hang around waiting." Electra (www.electra.com) recently offered advice that "sets you straight on style sacred rules such as can you wear white after Labor Day?" And iVillage (www.ivillage.com) highlighted: "Bill's a Leo, Monica's a Cancer. Check out their horoscopes now."

Meanwhile, Womenconnect.com spotlighted "The Sandwich Generation: A focus on juggling home, job and care of aging parents." In September, the site launched a "Politics Daily" feature written by National Journal staffers specifically for Womenconnect.com.

DeFife said one of her favorite comments from a customer was "Wow, a grown-up site for women." Still, analysts say the women's market on the Internet is so promising that there's room for all types of sites. DeFife's is one that analysts like because of its focus on a specific niche within the women's market. "She has a solid business model," said Yvette DeBow, a vice president with Jupiter Communications, the New York-based market research firm.

Women now make up 51 percent of Internet users, DeBow said. "There's a huge market opportunity," DeBow said. And it turns out women use the Internet to look for specific information and are more likely to buy something, while men are more likely to surf. Also, women tend to want to communicate more but don't want to spend a lot of time on the Internet. They are, actually, the ideal targets for e-commerce.

When she was the executive director of Women Executives in State Government, DeFife said, she was looking for a way to connect women in a more timely way. Then, in 1994, she found the Internet.

"Women will not only be the first community, but it will be the strongest," DeFife said.

All sorts of communities exist on the Internet now, bringing together people with similar interests, from jazz to the Redskins. But few are successful electronic commerce sites. Part of the reason Womenconnect.com works, she said, is that women already make most of the buying decisions in the real world. "We're taking what's a strong community offline and bringing it to the Internet," DeFife said.

Womenconnect.com takes a cut of advertisers' sales, ranging from 6 percent to 50 percent. The best seller, 1-800-Flowers, gives Womenconnect.com 10 percent of its sales through the site. Focusing the site specifically on professional women makes the e-commerce part of the process easier, she said. "I know my audience very well," DeFife said.

Patty Abramson, managing director of D.C.-based venture firm Women's Growth Capital Fund, which only invests in female-owned or female-run firms, said she invested $400,000 in Womenconnect.com because DeFife was one of the first people to realized women represent a real growth market on the Internet. Even more important, Abramson said: "She is one of her audience."

The women's Internet market heated up last month when America Online Inc. sold its female-oriented sites, including Electra and Moms Online (www.momsonline.com), to Oxygen Media, a start-up of Nickelodeon founder Geraldine Laybourne, for a minor stake in Oxygen. "That has thrown a spotlight on the women's market like nothing else," DeFife said. Laybourne "is an incredible player."

Womenconnect.com's senior vice president, Gary LaFever, laughs about how people hear the name of his company and think he works for a matchmaking service. "You've got to feel comfortable with who you are and not let it get to you," he said. DeFife was a client of his at the law firm Hogan & Hartson when she hired him away. "I'd been a partner in one of the biggest law firms and all of a sudden I was working for no pay out of the back of this woman's house," LaFever said.

"I was fascinated by her conviction. She stood by this thing for many years when she could have made a lot of money somewhere else. It's been a hell of a ride."