Indie success came down to a scary business decision for the Duplass brothers.

Their first feature-length film, "The Puffy Chair," had shown at the festivals. It was received well at Sundance in 2005. Mark and Jay Duplass even earned a few Independent Spirit Award nominations for the hipster relationship movie that has a guy and his girlfriend chasing after -- you guessed it -- a puffy chair he found on eBay for his father.

Then it came time to find a distributor, someone to buy their $30,000 film and put it in theaters for the rest of the world to see. That was the hard part.

"It did take us a while to sell it," Jay Duplass says. "We didn't sell it until a year after our premiere."

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No surprise that it was difficult for a pair of up-and-coming filmmakers from Austin, Texas, to get a deal on their movie? Well, the Duplass brothers made it a little more difficult for themselves.

"We had an interesting sales conundrum with this film," Mark Duplass says. "With little movies like this, if it gets good reviews and plays at Sundance, they're happy to purchase your DVD and your TV rights, because those are safe. But they're not as happy to buy your theatrical rights because you need all that money to promote it."

So they were faced with a difficult choice. They had a six-figure offer for just DVD and television. But if they wanted it in theaters, they'd get nothing up front.

"They use all that money that would have been your advance to then promote the film," Mark Duplass says. "We chose that option, which kind of was very painful, because we've been kind of living off of our parents for the last couple of years."

It started playing in theaters June 2 and is finishing up the run, having shown in 30 different U.S. cities for a few weeks at a time.

"We took a piecemeal approach," Jay says.

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The same could be said for the movie's marketing. They didn't have a lot of money, so they decided to treat the film "like an indie rock band," Mark says.

"We sent out all the bands we know with stickers and they put them up all over the country and we did the T-shirts."

The risky decision seems to have paid off. With just the theatrical run, the Duplass brothers have turned that $30,000 into $200,000.

"In the end it's what it's done for our careers and awareness for the movie," Mark Duplass says. "Now when it shows up on DVD everybody knows about it."

That's the hope. Starting Tuesday, "The Puffy Chair" will be available exclusively on Netflix for three months. In January it will be available wide. This is where the Duplasses hope they'll catch the majority of their audience.

"This is a DVD, word-of-mouth kind of movie," Mark Duplass said.

The hope is that fans will add it to their Netflix queues and give it good ratings and recommend it to their other Netflix friends.

"We're hoping over the next few years that people really like it and it will catch on more there."

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Caryn Rousseau is asap's Midwest writer, based in Kansas City, Mo.

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