Who works with the Startup Owl?

Venture Founders LLC Client Assignments

Venture Founders LLC is based in Putney, in the southeastern Vermont, USA and works for clients across North America, Europe and Africa. The Internet is a wonderful thing. I have worked with clients of many kinds. Some have been in business before, some are entirely new to the experience.

Each of my clients has completely different issues to face. I am working with one in Texas, which I give the code name ‘Pushing Up the Daisies’—a significant startup in what one day will be a chain of natural cemeteries see below). What we are tackling in this ground-breaking business is nothing like others such as an arboretum or my own startup in non-invasive technology that allows digital images to be analyzed for detection of early signs of systemic disease.

Here are just some of the businesses with whom I have worked recently; the stories are all very different and each is inspiring. I am proud of them all.

Get it Back

If you would like to see something of Get it Back, the main product of Transformations LLC, the Boulder, Colorado business started by one of my clients, take a look—and sign up to Glenn Hattem’s excellent web-based wellness program.

When we first started working together, Glenn was living hand-to-mouth and had to bootstrap finance the business, after having returned from extensive traveling in the Far East. He has come a long way since 2007, experimenting with different business models along the way. The business has burst out of a number of chrysalises and now has an excellent formula.

He is now zooming into orbit and here is some feedback he gave me the other day, “Thanks so much. I fixed it! I really appreciate your help and respect your opinion. Maybe in a month or two I can afford to pay you to help me finish a more accurate business plan after some sales. I’ve actually been selling my products and services and seeing my dream starting to work. It’s really cool.”

Glenn is a nationally certified personal trainer with almost 20 years of experience in the fitness industry. He has shared his passion, enthusiasm, hardships, and in-depth experience to teach thousands of people all over the world to reshape their bodies and live healthier, happier lives. His diverse clientele has ranged in age from 10 to over 85 years and has included actor/director Robert Redford, film producers (Star Wars), musicians (Journey, Santana) , Olympic medallists, NFL Super Bowl Champions, marines, SWAT teams, fire departments, physicians, corporate executives, and entire families.

Vert & Vogue

Vert & Vogue LLC is a Durham, North Carolina is an eco-fashion boutique for women, men, and baby. It is a single outlet now, but with more branches planned for other locations in southeastern US. My clients were husband and wife team, Ryan and Nadira Hurley. He is from New Jersey and she is French.

When Ryan first approached me, the business was envisioned as something much more complex and grandiose, including a hotel. As our discussions evolved, it became clear that the question was, how small can we start?’, rather than ‘how big?’ As we worked, we also had to zero in on exactly the right city to make a start from a choice of any in the United States, except in his home town in New Jersey.

The green consumer theme was always at the core of the business and a fashion boutique was a part of the package. We worked on seeing how small the business could be to start, not how large, because the Hurleys assets were limited and they did not want to dilute ownership of the business. Soon you will be able to order their products on line.

Ryan had a varied career before launching the business, including being sales manager of an early dot com, magazine publisher and a director at the Paley Center for Media in NYC. Nadira on the other hand, had managed fashion boutiques in Paris before they were married.

Originally she was not directly involved in the business idea, other than the way that spouses are obliged to be, but it progressively became clear that she should be intimately involved with Vert & Vogue in charge of buying and merchandising, the key ingredient of success. The Hurleys juggle the business with two young kids.

Just before they opened the store, one of Ryan’s comments to me was, “You are the best, Will! Thanks for all the insight, needling and good cheer. We’re on our way…” Now he says he “never realized how totally demanding running our own biz of this kind would be.” Now they flourish and you may soon be able to buy their fashion online. For the latest of their news, take a look at Triangle.com.

Crucial Communications

Arlene Disbrow developed Point to Communicate booklets—a wonderfully low-tech communication system—through her professional and personal experiences with communication challenges. Arlene, a communication partner to non-verbal individuals, recalls that “several years ago my father suffered from Parkinson’s Disease and Lyme Disease. In my desperation to hear what my father wanted to say, I created the system, enabling him to communicate with his caregivers; his wife, family and friends; and the medical team. The booklet immediately changed the quality of his life in a positive way and restored his integrity.”

One of Arlene’s customers, Dolly, lost her ability to connect, when she lost her ability to communicate verbally. Her world was shrinking and her physical stature along with it.

Her caregiver reports, “As humans we begin to ‘communicate’ at the time of our birth, and as many mothers would testify often prior to birth with kicks and elbows. Communication is the basic building block of our connectedness – what makes our lives worth living. I am amazed in Dolly’s growth from week to week when we share lunch every Monday. Dolly was introduced to and now uses Point to Communicate. She is connected once again to family, friends, and community.”

Arlene’s Vermont-based company Crucial Communications LLC was already up and running when I met her, but she was pedaling furiously to stand still. Not because she was not good at what she does, but she needed to notch the business up a gear. What we worked on was moving from one-off sales which were horrendously time consuming, to a corporate approach for multiple unit sales, Arlene was a delight to work with and coming from a non-business background she learned fast.

“Thank you so much, Will, for all that you taught me. It is such a pleasure to work with you,” she told me when talking about helping her to learn the corporate world. The pleasure was mutual and her product is in a growing number of hospitals and not just in one department, but in nearly all the units: ER, Surgery, Cancer, Geriatrics, Social Work, ICU, and with the speech language pathologists and audiologists. Watch Arlene and her product on YouTube.

Centre for Conscious Leadership

The Centre for Conscious Leadership is a South African consulting firm whose main approach is Whole Person Leadership—a fundamentally new concept of leadership, appropriate to the complex and turbulent contexts in which leaders need to operate. CCL believed that effective leadership originates in the ability to know and understand all aspects of yourself as a person: your emotional, cognitive, psychological and spiritual make-up and how they influence your behavior. It also requires an understanding, awareness and interpretation of the external environment and how this may influence your choices and actions.

I worked with the then partners of the firm (Heidi, Karin, Vicki, Nolitha, Yasmeen and Michael) on strategy development and direction. The very entrepreneurial ten year-old firm had a strong set of values. As a proudly indigenous South African company, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is a fundamental part of the business philosophy of CCL. This aims at transcending the focus on race to an end goal of achieving humanness. The company sought to achieve this through a commitment to model their way of being and doing in such a way that others might want it and want to be involved in it.

The deeply embedded ethos of CCL has much to offer many other countries where racial issues in business have only been treated in a mechanistic manner, rather than coming from a deeply held conviction. I was specially pleased to receive the comment from one member of the team, “It was a HUGE pleasure to meet you!! You really helped us think differently, provided enormous stimulus for new thinking and stopped our navel gazing!” Another said, “an absolute pleasure to have met you!! Thanks for your refreshing combination of directness – “protecting us with the truth” – and lightness and humor!”

Le Parc de Saleccia

Isabelle Demoustier graduated with a degree in tourism, but had no intention of going into business, till her father Bruno and mother, Irene encouraged her to take the leap. Irene, and Bruno—a landscape designer and aboriculturist had an established garden center business where Bruno had for many years been planting and propagating almost every species of Mediterranean olive tree. It is a treasure trove both for the specialist and the vacationer.

The Parc de Saleccia in the Balagne region of Corsica had been a Demoustier idea for several years, but it needed someone to lead its translation into a viable business. Isabelle was the obvious choice. The arboretum is on 17 spectacular ocean-side acres and has a very naturalistic set of trails and special features that not only make it a place for a visit, but also as a venue for weddings and other events. If you visit Corsica, be sure to make a visit.

We set up for her to meet the Venture Capital company where I was on the board, but she needed coaching so that her business plan and commercial strategy would meet the conditions necessary for financing. Now one of the major tourist attractions in Corsica, the park has several revenue streams including a store, aromatherapy courses, storytelling events for kids, traditional basket-making courses, qi gong workshops, environmental  and prehistory seminars, music.. a nearly endless list of events in a magical setting.

Indigo Fields

Terry Ward has a very successful company already. His business, Country Communities pioneers the creation of communities in the Texas countryside, and is based in Houston.

I have worked with Terry for about three years on different projects. His newest venture and the one on which he intends concentrating for the rest of his own life, is natural burial.

The business he is developing at Chappell Hill between Houston and Austin is set on 30 acres and will include not only burial plots, scattering grounds and a columbarium, but will have a hall for celebrating other transitions in life, such as coming of age, and marriages.

The burial ground, provisionally called Indigo Fields, will also be in part a conservation area with recreational opportunities. Woodlands, trails and water features will be open for celebrating life in many ways.

This pioneering venture will be the first of a number of others throughout the United States. If you’d like to get a flavor of what’s involved, take a look at one of Terry’s recent videos.

Sky and Earth Bushcraft

While not strictly a client, I was much involved with a (now sleeping) startup of a student in the Marlboro College Graduate School MBA in Managing for Sustainability program.

I am a Faculty Partner and teach strategy on the program and was the adviser on student Brian Schwartz’s ‘Capstone Project’—an alternative approach to offsets, typically carbon offsets, many of which are now coming under considerable questioning. Brian’s approach is based on three interlinked concepts: the importance of sustainability now, story change and spiritual renewal.

Now an MBA, he has moved on from his business school project and has set up Sky and Earth Bushcraft. He invites visitors to share his passion for basic bush-crafting materials, techniques, and the wondrous simplicity that can be found in outdoor adventuring. The venture is in an early stage, but looks like it will fill a void in the market of mindful life in the wild.

Brian’s new venture demonstrates how a new business can both reflect your values and be done on a shoestring. It also reflects the experience of many other entrepreneurs, that it may not be the first idea that takes hold. Getting going will often give you the knowledge and experience to make a much better fist of it the second time around.

Now You!

You and your needs are completely unlike those of Glenn, Ryan and Nadira, Arlene, the CCL partners, Isabelle, Terry or Brian. That is no surprise. Your story is unique.

As a serial entrepreneur, though, I have very likely been somewhere like where you are now. Tell me about it! Email me.