Those that know me are aware that I’m frequently coming up with business ideas, and pondering “how can I create jobs with this?”
Several years ago when I was working for Washington Mutual I got the idea of bringing an indoor skydiving facility to the Northwest. I had seen these elsewhere, and research showed them to be successful businesses.
After contacting a vertical windtunnel manufacturer in Orlando, FL, I began to create a business plan with the help of SBA – SCORE, and discussed it with friends in the venture capital world. The advice was pretty consistent: since I wouldn’t own a patent on the idea, the only way I could be an owner /general partner, is if I brought a lot to the table– in management experience, and/or in capital. If I brought the idea to an investor, he might have me do all the research (location, costs, audits, etc.) but without a large financial stake of my own (skin in the game) I would probably end up an employee and never reimbursed for the efforts in creating the business, at least not as an equity owner. In order to borrow (since debt is cheaper than equity) I would also need sizeable assets, or at least have been a proven success in the same kind of business. Obviously a restaurateur is usually one who has managed a successful restaurant before, and banks don’t require as much in the way of personal assets, but for a skydiving facility, we’re talking about a multi-million dollar construction, in an “untested” (at least to their minds) category.
So, the idea was always there, and I knew it would be a great job-generating business for the Northwest, but also knew that until I had high net worth, it was a pipe dream.
Last year I stumbled upon iFly SF Bay and iFly Hollywood online, and it occurred to me that the owner of those new locations might be considering a move to Seattle or Portland. No way I was going to miss out on some level of participation if that was in the works… Nothing ventured, nothing gained– so I used social media to get in touch with Kent Sessions, the owner of those two great facilities.
He was not planning to do anything in the Northwest, but new someone who was! Bill Adams was already in advanced stages of planning a new vertical windtunnel, and Kent made the introduction through LinkedIn. Bill is a serial entrepreneur, one of those guys who instinctively knows how to grow a business. He’d done land development on the Washington coast, created a security company and sold it, and is currently running a helicopter factory.
When we met, all the excitement and enthusiasm I’d had for the initial idea came rushing back: he’d already put together copious blueprints and draft designs, a full business plan with detailed financials, as well as audits from other operational tunnels, and of course had gathered a lot of capital. I feel extremely fortunate to connect with him now, during planning stages, rather than after he’d broken ground. Entrepreneurial energy is much stronger than caffeine, and I had a million ideas.
We talked about marketing, social media, sales strategies… and I realized that even if I had been successful in developing indoor skydiving in Seattle those years before, I would probably be in the same position, with someone else in the role of an investor/owner CEO, and my value being in the sales, marketing, operations and new media category.
We’ve progressed quite a bit towards the build since that conversation… I am so thrilled to be helping make it happen. It’s kind of the “rocking chair test”: wouldn’t I want one day to be able to look back and know I was part of something that changed Seattle and put a lot of people to work?
