Starting up is never easy—and keeping your business
thriving is even harder. But when you've got a support system
in place, your entrepreneurial journey can be a bit easier. At
least that's what the 13 member companies of Starve Ups believe.
A nonprofit Portland, Oregon-based organization formed in late 2000
to be a support and networking group, Starve Ups provides a forum
for young entrepreneurs to share ideas and get solutions to common
problems.
In this, the first of a two-part series, we caught up with three
members to hear their take on the current state of
entrepreneurship, how they're getting through the economic
downturn and how Starve Ups is helping them through it all. The
panelists: Leif Youngberg, 35, co-founder of CoolerEmail.com,
an enhanced e-mail services provider; Mark Hutchinson, 32, founder
of VisionSite, a Web portal for eye-care information and
a directory of eye-care professionals; and Ryan Buchanan, 26,
founder of GCmaterials, an e-services provider for construction
companies and subcontractors. Here are their stories.
Entrepreneur.com: How has
starting and being a part of the organization helped you?
Content Continues Below
Leif Youngberg: Portland is
a phenomenal location for entrepreneurs in general. There are lots
of networking organizations. [Most] bring service providers and
technical people together on a weekly or monthly basis to share
ideas. Starve Ups is different. [With this] organization,
you've got a group of 15 or 16 companies all in very similar
stages of growth, all with very aggressive growth patterns looking
to share a higher level of information with each other. Not
necessarily just looking for a service provider, but looking to
network and get advice on how to get a company from X dollars in
sales to 15 times that in a short amount of time.
Entrepreneur.com: It seems
that you all have such varied backgrounds and bring so many
different things to the table. How are you all sharing that
knowledge?
Mark Hutchinson: Because
we're all from a variety of backgrounds, we really get some
different viewpoints. When you're your own company and
you're the boss, people defer to you a lot. In the Starve Ups
group, people will ask you, "Why? Why'd you do that? What
are you going to do about this?" It really helps to keep your
mind open as to what you need to be doing and why you need to be
doing it. And also, these other people are in the same boat as you.
They're facing the same challenges—maybe there's a
different spin on them, but everyone's trying to overcome the
same difficult economic environment, trying to expand their
business, grow revenues, make good connections.
Ryan Buchanan: I think
there's also more candidness because [we're not] direct
competitors since we all have such varied backgrounds. So we can
really help each other out going through these similar
challenges.
Entrepreneur.com: What kind
of meetings and gatherings do you have?
Buchanan: Recently we had an
event called Starve Ups Square, where we had 300 to 400 people come
in the center of Downtown Portland to learn more about what it
takes to start a company and do it in the most cost-effective
manner. So in that sense, we're not only sharing what we've
learned with each other, but also trying to give back to the
community.
Hutchinson: There was a lot
of demand from other people who wanted to get into our group.
[However,] one thing that we are really focused on is to keep it
very intimate so that each of the member companies knows about all
the other members. Starve Ups Square was a way that we could help
all those people and share with them- we didn't feel that we
could do it in our monthly meeting. That was an avenue for us to
say, "Hey, come down. We'll all talk. We'll bring in
some experts on every different subject and share with [people in
all business stages] and help get them off the ground."
Entrepreneur.com: And
you're committed to keeping it intimate, so you're not
going to accept any more members?
Hutchinson: Well, the
original idea was that as the member companies mature or die off,
we would be able to bring in new people and new companies. So far,
amazingly, I think, most of us are still here. I credit a lot of
that to being in this group and getting that mental and emotional
support from the group to keep going when there's no hope.
Buchanan: It's a
survival mentality.
Hutchinson: Exactly.
Youngberg: OK, this is going
to be a little bit tricky because I'm going to try to be
diplomatic here with Mark. I need to be because I'm going to
make him a business pitch after this interview [laughs]. I'm
going to disagree just slightly with one of his assessments that
it's kind of amazing that we're all here. I would suggest
maybe that it's not as unusual as one might think to have all
the companies alive in that it's kind of a competitive
advantage for all the Starve Ups companies to have achieved their
certain milestones before the dotcom crash. If you were to go down
the list—and I think Mark's company would be in this
category—most of them had already received some fairly
important funding and had lots of the technology (both the software
and the hardware) in place before the crash, and as a result, most
of the Starve Ups companies have been able to push forward pretty
steadily while it's been virtually impossible for any of their
potential competitors to enter the marketplace.
Check back next month for part two of this series, where
we'll talk more about the economy and the important issues
facing young entrepreneurs today.