After his first success, Weber continued to work in the building supply industry, climbing his way up to an executive position while at the same time bringing some 40 more products to market, consistently reinvesting profits into an innovation company. But it wasn’t easy. Developing a new product is a “long, long hard road,” as well as an expensive one.
Weber spent the past nine years and millions of dollars developing a heated skate blade that was touted to revolutionize the game of hockey. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky endorsed the ThermaBlade, believing in it so much he invested his own money in the company. Although the skate was tested for use in the National Hockey League and got positive reviews, the league eventually rejected it, leaving retailers cool to the product and putting the company on ice.
“We ran into some issues with respect to getting NHL approval,” says Weber, whose manufacturing company Therma Blade Inc. was forced to declare bankruptcy in July. “The delays weren’t in our business model, and retailers were waiting for the official NHL approval before they ordered and, obviously, revenue plays a big part in your company moving forward or not. The delays killed us.”
That failure, however, allowed Weber to move forward with his next project, a do-it-yourself deck assembly system. In hindsight, going into the skate manufacturing business was a mistake, says Weber. It would have been better, he says, to license and sell his idea and leave the manufacturing and distribution to the industry experts.
In his current venture, Weber’s building on those lessons learned from the Therma-Blade experience. He sought investors to finance the $3.5 million needed to design the latest product, SigmaDek, a decking system that can be assembled within a few hours. The company is now negotiating with potential licensees and it’s hoped the product will hit the market in 2010. “It has been a real blessing. We’ve got a number of parties looking at licensing the technology and taking over management of the company as well,” says Weber. “So all you do is go to the bank every 30 days and deposit a cheque.”
MONEY IS WHAT drives many people to start their own business. Getting rich was certainly the initial motivation for Greg Habstritt when he dropped out of business school almost a decade ago to start a Calgary telecommunications company that led the interactive voice messaging market. Habstritt’s goal was be a millionaire by 30. He achieved that at 29, when the deal closed on the sale of his company one day before his birthday.
Within almost a year, however, most of the money was gone, lost in the stock market or frittered away on the high-roller lifestyle Habstritt thought fit the profile of a young millionaire. Losing almost everything taught him that a successful entrepreneur needs a purpose other than getting rich.
“The label of millionaire is the most foolish thing that entrepreneurs chase,” says the self-described deal junkie, now 39, who eventually regained his multimillionaire status. “You can luck into something, but the people who are successful – and stay successful – are clear on what they want and why they want it.”
After earning and losing his first million, the native Calgarian redefined his goals and set out to learn more about how money works rather than how to accumulate it. In 2001, a year after being named Canada’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year, he founded
his own real estate investment firm, Real Equity Group of Companies, which now boasts a portfolio approaching $100 million. As his new company grew, more and more people sought him out for financial advice. Habstritt decided it would be more efficient to share his knowledge by creating an investment training company, Simple- Wealth Inc. The two organizations now work synergistically, sharing resources and information.
“The biggest mistakes I have made were when I went into a business that I couldn’t really, honestly draw a synergy back to what I was already doing,” says Habstritt, who also has an event management company that in September hosted a star-studded cast of serial entrepreneurs like Virgin Group owner Richard Branson. Too often, he says, businesses that are successful in a certain niche or market branch out into something unrelated. “Then the new division flounders and dies, and if they’re not careful, it kills the mothership, too,” adds Habstritt.
Whether it’s a startup or an expansion plan, entrepreneurs see opportunities in challenges, according to the Business Development Bank of Canada. A survey by the BDC in June found that while tight credit conditions remain a problem for a significant number of Canadian businesses, entrepreneurs are optimistic about their business prospects in the current economic downturn. That includes Chrapko, Weber and Habstritt.
Chrapko remains persistent in his efforts to raise the $600 million he needs for his clean energy companies. Weber, meantime, is pursuing his passion to innovate and already planning the SigmaDek spinoff, an easy-assembly house, while Habstritt finds new purpose in the writing of his first investment book, due to the publisher in December.
There’s no telling whether any of these ventures will be a success, regardless of their experience. As Habstritt points out, “Nobody said it was easy being an entrepreneur.”
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