Directory assists Spokane area startups

Nathan Brown has distilled entrepreneurial networking in the Inland Northwest to a spiral-bound notebook. Were the just-released "Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Entrepreneurs Resource Directory" not free, it would be a local best-seller.

Bert Caldwell
The Spokesman-Review

Area innovators for years have bemoaned the difficulty they have finding the people who can provide the services startup companies need to survive. They might find an accountant, but not a printer. A grant writer, but not a Web site developer. A financial analyst, but not a laboratory.

And then there’s the local and state agencies that must be approached for licenses, or what have you.

"There are incredibly talented people in the community," Brown says. "But the fact of the matter is there’s no network."

As a participant in one way or another in several startups, Brown had dealt with many of those problems himself. The directory was intended to fill in blanks he encountered over the years. With 80 categories and more than 600 companies, the listings cover most of them, but with 5,000 glossy copies in circulation less than one week, Brown says he’s already getting calls from individuals with graphics, engineering and other skills who work from their homes, or out of one-person offices.

"Those sorts of people just fall under the radar screen," Brown says, estimating that the directory may have overlooked almost as many service providers as it includes.

Compiling the lists, even with help from most business groups in the area, took far more effort than he expected, Brown says. And as the information accumulated, the projected date of publication kept slipping — by a year. Some who had made commitments to the project fell away. It didn’t help, he says, that he was particular about the directory’s look, which caused him to throw away advance copies.

Some of the $35,000 cost came out of his pocket, although 10 sponsors provided some support.

Brown says the guide is a way for him to give back to a community he once swore he would never return to.

Brought up in Southern California and the Spokane Valley — his father was in the U.S. Air Force — Brown got his undergraduate degree at San Jose (California) State University and a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from Stanford University.

Brown worked as a financial analyst in Silicon Valley, where he says he saw firsthand the value of networking. While there, Hewlett-Packard approached him about a job at its Liberty Lake plant. Although a visit left him with a much more favorable impression of the area, he instead took a position as a financial analyst with the Morgan Stanley investment bank in New York City. But HP remained interested, and after two years back east, Brown and his wife, a Coeur d’Alene native, returned.

His own entrepreneurial bent got him involved in other ventures before he created The Morgan Leigh Group http://www.morganleigh.net/index.html , which prepares business plans, presentations, and pro forma financial statements.

Though happy with the directory, Brown says he hopes to restore some of the content he excised to finally get out the 2003 version. More company profiles, for example, more extensive listings — and more advertising.

He says he has already received positive feedback on a three-page "Startup Checklist" he assembled based on his own experience.

Those who want copies can e-mail a request to: [email protected]. Brown said the city of Liberty Lake has agreed to handle mailing. And online copies are available at the same Web address.

Maybe the best place to start reading is the back cover, a clever takeoff on movie ads. Rated "G" for "Great Ideas," "A Startup Success Story In The Inland Northwest," is "brought to you by YOU," with the support of "mentors," "enablers" and "advisers." The happy ending? "Transformation of the Inland Northwest Economy."

Read the book first.

Business columnist Bert Caldwell can be reached at (509) 459-5450 or by e-mail at [email protected]

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=061903&ID=s1369501&cat=section.business