Paul Stephens said he was drunk and thoughtful when he decided to spend money on a business venture, rather than another night on the town.

“I immediately went to Will, who’s been my best friend since I was cool enough to have friends, and told him I wanted to go ahead and start a business with the money I had,” said Stephens, a senior from Atlanta.

Stephens joined forces with fellow University students Will Montague and Charlie Butts, and www.TheShopAthens.com was born.

The Shop is a Web site for residents of and visitors to Athens to inform them of businesses, restaurants and special events happening in the city.

“The Shop is an excellent source of information for anyone out and about in the city of Athens,” said Montague, a senior marketing major from Atlanta.

“We have directions and phone numbers, drink specials, concerts, a restaurant guide, a shopping guide, in addition to many other useful tools for navigating Athens.”

The three partners said they agree on each of their strengths in the group. Stephens and Montague split the business side. Butts organizes the Web design aspects.

“Creating, building and maintaining the site taught me a great deal of business and Web development skills that I am currently using to help develop The Shop,” said Butts, a senior management information systems major from Norcross.

Links to the University Web sites and Georgia football information is included on the site for students, but content is not limited to Bulldog information.

Now the site is up and running, but the guys said they went through a lot to get to this point.

Stephens and Montague wrote out a business plan after the group brainstormed various ideas for the content of the site. Butts researched the best ways to go online and different software applications.

“Once the plans were done, we went to work with all kinds of tasks: outsourcing the logo design, adding entries to the events and business directory and ordering advertising materials,” said Stephens. “It was extremely overwhelming for three people.”

The Shop still is growing and undergoing changes to enhance its usability. Other additions are being made in order to continue piquing Athenians’ interest, such as the “Athens by Area” link.

“It’s going to be a feature that lets you find a business by an area of Athens,” said Montague. “Plenty of times I’ve been like, ‘I wish I knew which restaurants are downtown or which stores are on the east side,’ and this feature will solve that dilemma.”

Other upcoming additions to the Web site include a section to sell T-shirts for businesses and bands and a link to rate the quality of local apartment complexes.

The trio said they hope to make the site more interactive in the near future with a personalized home page for users and a forum for people to discuss local events.

Butts said the versatility of the site gives viewers options in sticky situations.

“The Shop allows students to find bar specials one night and DUI schools the next morning,” said Butts.