Some customers call startled, squeamish, clueless. Mark Murrell coaches them to embrace the experience, pot-boiling and all.

Murrell is founder and CEO of GetMaineLobster.com, a “dock-to-door” overnight live lobster service.

“It’s really cool to open the box, and they all lift their arms and the tentacles are moving,” said Murrell, 40. “Oftentimes, it’s more of just calming them down.”

The customers, not the lobsters.

Murrell runs the company out of Chicago. His vice president is in Lima, Peru. All four employees, including himself, are Auburn and Lewiston high school graduates.

The company was founded in 2010 and sales have doubled each year since. It shipped 3,000 orders over Valentine’s Day.

“We’re very, very busy, with only the four of us managing that,” Murrell  said. “All the while, we need to make sure (customers) have a great experience working with us, despite how busy or frustrated we may be. We need to make sure that they’re dealing with some good Maine boys.”

GetMaineLobster.com was one of three companies picked by Chase Bank last month to highlight a 2013 national Platinum Business ad campaign.

The new commercial shows Murrell lobstering in Portland. He has done it, but he’s more of a tech guy and serial entrepreneur than a lobsterman in a yellow slicker, hauling traps.

Murrell grew up in Auburn and graduated from high school in 1990. His first websites in 1995 included ThePickleJar.com, an online dating site.

“In reality, we were a little bit too early,” he said.

After moving to Chicago in 2006, a friend at a Bath seafood company asked Murrell about taking his business online. When his friend didn’t pull the trigger, Murrell and a partner ran with the idea.

“Being in Chicago, missing Maine, I was excited to be able to try to do this,” he said.

By the end of 2011, it was a full-time job.

GetMaineLobster.com works with a dozen lobstermen in Brunswick and Portland, buying and shipping daily through brokers. Prices on Wednesday started at $95.95, plus shipping, for two one-pounders.

“There’s a small market for that; not a lot of people buy just two lobsters,” Murrell said. “Most people are buying dinner packages.”

The company’s stategy is to offer specials and work with discount websites such as Groupon. California has been its top lobster destination, followed by the D.C. metro area.

“We really deal with a lot of first-timers,” Murrell said.

Like the customer who recently told him she didn’t think she could kill her lobsters.

“I said, ‘Well, I really want you to have this experience, so if you trust me, when they arrive, give me a call and I’ll walk you through it,'” he said. And he did.

For customers who really can’t do it, the lobsters can be cooked in advance.

Murrell returns to Maine every other month. His parents, Carol and Richard Murrell, live in Turner.

His goals for 2013 are to continue to double sales and start selling internationally.

The company is made up of Murrell, Andrew Desgrosseilliers, vice president of operations, who graduated from Edward Little High School in Auburn in 1993 and lives in Lima, Peru; Marc Beaudry, director of customer relations, also in the Edward Little Class of 1993, who lives in Auburn; and Moe Beaudry, customer relations account executive, Lewiston High Class of 1990, who lives in Durham.

GetMaineLobster.com’s parent company, Black Point Seafood, was also founded by Murrell and operates other seafood websites. Meanwhile, Murrell is exploring other business opportunities.

“The core would be the same — four Maine boys taking care of this,” he said.

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