Costco Connection - August 2006

and proclaim himself an expert, there are too many people holding fish out as far as their arms can go.

But, by any standard, not the Sloans. Here’s why.

Lights out, light on

Typical business experts love to cite their MBAs and lengthy curricula vitae. Not Jeff and Rich Sloan. “We are about as far away from textbook information as you can get,” says Rich. “We’ve never taken a business class in our lives, let alone have [business] degrees.” (In fact, Jeff was an English major; Rich studied Asian history.)

What they do have starts with a smart little device called the Battery Buddy. On a rainy night in 1987, Jeff Sloan was sitting in his car near Flint, Michigan, when he saw a guy leave a restaurant and go to start his car. Thanks to leaving the lights on, the battery had died. The man went from car to car in the pouring rain, looking for somebody with battery cables, but ended up calling a tow truck.

Wouldn’t it be nice, Jeff thought, if cars had some kind of “battery saver”? Three years later, after countless hours of developing a prototype and pounding on doors, Jeff and

Rich, 28 and 21 at the time, stood in the boardroom of a company that made accessories for Detroit’s automak-ers and got a thumbs-up for the Battery Buddy. Sloan Products, a division of Sloan Corp., was on its way.

The brothers made enough money off the Battery Buddy to expand into other areas, most notably a venture-capital firm in the 1990s. Sloan Ventures would look for a promising tech start-up, write the business plan, find the management team, attract outside investors and launch the company. The firm backed 15 businesses in all, totaling nearly $70 million in financing.

But then came the market crash of April 14, 2000, and the pool of angel investors dried up overnight. The Sloans had another idea. Why not create a multimedia company that tapped all the things they had learned about starting and running businesses for other entrepreneurs? They called it StartupNation, and in 2002 found themselves in the business of giving small-business advice.

Their résumé is built on street smarts, but it’s complemented by some deeper personal history. “We are a couple of guys who grew up in Flint, Michigan, watching the early-’70s version of Flint, where the unemployment lines were about as depressing as you can imagine,” says Rich. “And we decided, ‘We ain’t working for the man. We’re going to go do something for ourselves.’”

SAN TA FABIO

sonal anecdotes and effortlessly bouncing ideas off each other. They answer a few questions from the audience without missing a beat.

They also throw occasional friendly barbs at each other. Jeff cautions the audience that many new businesses fail because they haven’t organized plans and operations properly. Rich breaks in, “Of course, maybe another hidden reason businesses fail is because they don’t have a younger brother to take up the slack for the older brother.”

“Right,” Jeff allows.

It’s a 45-minute session that showcases what sets the Sloan brothers apart: sound advice,

enthusiasm and chemistry—a

Tony Robbins message with a Rowan and Martin delivery. Certainly other small-business experts out there have comparable experiences of life in the trenches. And other Web sites, including one that we all pay for—the federal

Small Business Administration’s site—are loaded with A-to-Z information on how to start, finance

Among many of their early entrepreneurial activities, Jeff, left, and Rich Sloan imported juggling sets.

member profile

Method to the madness

The makeup artist applies the finishing touches on their faces, and Jeff and Rich Sloan turn toward the cameras. The lights go on, the taping begins and, as though some kind of internal switch has been flicked—click!—the brothers begin talking about small business.

On this day the topic is organizational strategies, taped for a Microsoft small-business summit last March. The Sloans adeptly cover the topic, cramming in helpful bits about cash flow, insurance and business plans, interjecting a few per-

Name: StartupNation

Principals:

Jeff and Rich Sloan

Employees: 18

Address:

430 N. Old Woodward Ave.

Birmingham, MI 48009

Phone: 1-866-55-START (557-8278)

Web site:

www.StartupNation.com

Comments about Costco:

“Our kitchen is stocked full of Costco stuff. And then our office manager uses Costco frequently for basic supplies. In business, you don’t have much time. You want to get stuff done, you want to get it efficiently, you want a good value. That’s what the Costco membership is all about.”