Upsize Minnesota is a magazine devoted to helping small-business owners build bigger and more profitable companies. Readers are owners, managers and investors of small to mid-sized businesses who actively seek smart ways to grow.

Small businesses, those with fewer than 100 employees, make up more than 95 percent of all companies in the United States and employ about half the private workforce. Upsize aims to connect those owners with practical information, real-life inspiration and local resources, in a lively format that's a pleasure to receive and read.

Each issue includes how-to articles contributed by local experts, profiles of business owners and their efforts to grow their companies, and feature stories that explain step by step the best ideas for building a business. Emphasis is placed on finance, accounting, law, technology, human resources and marketing, with regular coverage of those topics as well as special sections devoted to them. Upsize Minnesota is published 10 times each year, including two double issues: the Upsize Business Builder edition in June/July, and the Upsize Toolkit edition in December/January.

Popular features of Upsize include Dear Informer, an advice column that answers business owners' specific questions; Upsize Toolkit, a list of 40 local service providers in a different industry segment each time; and contact boxes that list phone numbers, e-mail addresses and Web sites of every source in every article. That last feature, the contact box, demonstrates Upsize's mission to connect business owners directly with resources that can help, including service providers that advertise in the magazine.

The magazine's founders are small-business owners themselves, having launched Upsize Minnesota in 2002, and they understand the challenges and rewards of the entrepreneur.

The editor, Beth Ewen, is a veteran business journalist who writes several articles in each issue. The publisher, Wes Bergstrom, launched, built and successfully sold another small-business magazine before starting Upsize. The design director, Jonathan Hankin, holds multiple awards, both regional and national, for creative work on a number of magazines. They believe in employing sophisticated business journalists, professional photographers and illustrators, high-quality paper and elegant design to create a product that is authoritative and beautiful.

Upsize Minnesota hosts special contests and events each year, designed to celebrate the successes of small-business owners and educate participants about best business practices.

Annual events are the Upsize Growth Challenge, in which three winning companies receive expert advice to help them realize their dreams for their business; the Upsize Business Builder Awards & Seminar, in which finalists share their savviest ideas for business growth and learn the identity of the Upsize Business Builder of the Year ; and the Upsize Small-Business Summit, in which recipients of the Upsize Lifeline Awards show their gratitude to their most important advisers, and all attendees learn from breakout sessions and a keynote panel of notable entrepreneurs.

Upsize publishes Upsize e-tools 24 times each year, an electronic newsletter that offers one-paragraph tips from experts on finance, law, marketing, technology, human resources, accounting, mergers and acquisitions, and more. In December 2006 Upsize launched How-to Audio, a series of podcasts featuring questions and practical answers from top experts in the areas of finance, law, technology, marketing, office interiors, real estate, and more.

Sincerely yours,