Think Gutenberg 2.0

The company's growth rate beat Google's. One analyst labels the firm a "category killer," like Home Depot, for its potential to reshape an industry.

A next-generation search engine? The new killer app? No, what analysts are talking about is a company that straddles the old and new economies, using the Internet and the printing press to produce humble business cards, brochures, and stationery at lower prices.

Targeting small businesses with 10 employees or fewer, VistaPrint Ltd. of Lexington gained 800,000 new customers in the last quarter alone. Its revenue surged 67 percent from a year earlier -- better even than Google Inc.'s revenue increase of 63 percent.

Now VistaPrint is looking to another old economy product -- textiles -- to spur even more growth. Adapting the technology that allows customers to order small quantities but get large-batch prices, VistaPrint is expanding its franchise to T-shirts, kicking off the new service this weekend with T-shirt giveaways at Fenway Park.

With the new service, customers can design T-shirts online and order as few as one. Prices start at less than $10.

"They are doing a lot of things right," said Nate Swanson, a software and business services analyst at ThinkEquity Partners LLC, an investment bank in San Francisco. "In size, speed, or profit margins, I don't see anyone who can match what they're doing."

Founded in France in 1995, VistaPrint moved to the Boston area in early 2000, attracted by the deep pool of technical talent and venture capital.

Talk about bad timing. As the dot-com bubble burst, VistaPrint had to slash its workforce to 20 from 70 and shut down its European office. By 2001, however, the firm turned profitable.

VistaPrint now employs more than 300 at its Lexington headquarters, an increase of nearly 60 percent in the last year. It recently expanded into a new 165,000-square-foot building, triple the size of its old headquarters.

VistaPrint's patented technology allows it to combine many small orders into one large production run, so small businesses get the price breaks once reserved for big businesses with big orders.

The process is highly automated. Jobs that would use three hours of labor at a traditional print shop require about one minute at VistaPrint, analysts said. As a result, VistaPrint can undercut prices at traditional print shops by up to 90 percent and its online competitors by 20 to 30 percent.

Jim Friedland, an industry analyst at Cowen and Co., a New York investment bank, described VistaPrint as a "category killer," a company with a highly efficient model that puts less efficient competitors out of business and reshapes an industry. Home Depot, which undercut many local hardware stores, is an example of a category killer.

VistaPrint's success is due not only low price, but also high quality, Friedland said. Friedland's own company once needed 5,000 color postcards to market a conference. The local printer wanted 49 cents a piece; VistaPrint did it for 12 cents.

"They keep getting better," Fried land said, "They spend more on R and D and customer service than their competitors generate in revenue."

Lee Duhl, the owner of Fleur de Lee Designs a Lexington floral design shop, said she was more interested in quality than price when she ordered business cards, wanting the right shades of teal and dark blue.

She was able to work with designers via VistaPrint's website, sending proofs back and forth electronically until it was just right. As a sole proprietor, working at home while keeping an eye on a 5-year-old, she said the ability to design the cards without making several trips to the printer was big advantage.

"The convenience was great," she said, "and the turnaround was really fast."

VistaPrint today commands about 90 percent of the online printing market, analysts said, but that accounts for only about 1 percent of the total small business printing market, estimated at $20 billion in the US and Europe.

With such potential for growth, however, more competitors are entering the market. Eastman Kodak Co. of Rochester, N.Y., for example, recently launched an online printing service, called Kodak Creative Network.

"As we look at the small business and home office market, it makes sense they would now start looking at the Internet for convenience," said Margaret Jones, the marketing director for Kodak Creative Network.

Robert Keane, VistaPrint's chief executive, said he expects new competitors to emerge. But, he said, VistaPrint has a big head start, already processing 20,000 orders a day. It continues to invest heavily in technology and marketing.

And with Massachusetts' deep pool of technical talent, Keane added, he expects the company to keep growing in the Boston area.

After all, he said, "We left Paris, France, to come here."

Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com.