August 4, 2022

By Nathaniel Gorin and Christina Henderson

On May 5th, 2022, five Montana entrepreneurs came together to discuss the challenges of starting and scaling their businesses. The panel “Future Forward: Montana Startups to Watch in 2022” was hosted by the Montana High Tech Business Alliance and Blackfoot Communications at Missoula College and featured founders from Blackfoot's C2M Beta accelerator and the Alliance’s list of Montana Startups to Watch in 2022. Speakers included:

• Chase Bartlett, Founder, Bridgible

• David Mayer, Founder and CEO, Endpoint Utility Corp

• Ken Fichtler, Founder and CEO, Gaize

• Molly Bradford, CEO and Co-Founder, GatherBoard

• Alli DePuy, Co-founder and CIO, Inspired Classroom

Here are three key takeaways from the conversation.

#1: Tap Montana’s tight support networks

One asset highlighted by all five speakers was Montana’s supportive entrepreneurial community. Molly Bradford, CEO and co-founder of community events platform GatherBoard, has lived in Missoula for more than 20 years and witnessed a longstanding value for mutual support among Montanans.

“The vibe that I have felt for decades, even before I started my own business, was that people in Montana want each other to succeed,” Bradford said. “People will work hard to open doors for you.”

More recent Montana transplants have experienced similar benefits. When David Mayer co-founded IT services company Endpoint Utility Corp in Kalispell in 2021, he had 20+ years of experience working in IT for companies like Microsoft but was new to entrepreneurship. The fledgling CEO was also relatively new to Montana, having relocated to Whitefish from Phoenix, Arizona two years ago. But as Mayer sought resources to launch his startup, he found local business leaders willing to help. Liz Marchi, Head of Community Engagement for Two Bear Capital in Whitefish and founder of Frontier Angel Fund (now Frontier Angels) was one.

“Liz was nice enough to meet with me in her office at least two or three times for absolutely no reason for Liz's value,” Mayer said. “But it was really helpful for me. And that's just one of many examples I can drop of folks in Montana that said, ‘Hey, I've done this before’…To meet with them, and to be able to draw on their experiences and get their advice or feedback was really helpful.”

Chase Bartlett, founder and CEO of Bridgible, has also been in Montana for two years and experienced that same sense of community as a student entrepreneur at the University of Montana (UM). Bartlett grew up in Austin, Texas and moved to Missoula in 2020 to play and coach tennis for the Griz while earning his MBA in the UM College of Business.

Bartlett placed third in the statewide John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge at UM in 2021. He came up with the idea for his online sports coaching marketplace in a weekend Venture to Launch class taught by Paul Gladen, director of the UM Blackstone LaunchPad and Accelerate Montana.

“[Paul Gladen] was a huge help,” Bartlett said. “He stuck with me and helped me [for] eight to nine months and he still helps me whenever I have questions. That kind of mentorship and leadership is something that I couldn't be more grateful for, and I think that that's what makes Montana special.”

#2: Leverage accelerators to launch and scale

Three of the five companies on the panel participated in recent cohorts of C2M Beta, a no-equity, no fees technology accelerator for businesses in Montana and Idaho. C2M Beta, which stands for Blackfoot Communications’ tagline “Connect to More,” is a 12-week program that teaches core concepts like customer discovery and validation of market fit.

While originally designed for early-stage startups like Bridgible, more mature growth-stage companies like GatherBoard and Inspired Classroom have also benefited from C2M. In addition to providing a supportive community of coaches, peers, and alumni, short-term accelerators can help entrepreneurs get a business education without going back to school.

“I'm a middle-aged mom,” Bradford said. “I hadn't gone to business school…but I was like, ‘Wow, I need like a real quick master's degree.’ So, [C2M] was actually perfect for us…We knew we were missing key information.”

Alli DePuy started her career as an educator before co-founding Missoula-based EdTech company Inspired Classroom in 2014. Like Bradford, DePuy successfully bootstrapped her company for many years before applying to C2M to gain tools to fuel the next phase of growth.

“I hadn't even taken the time to really understand a lot of different components of actually running a business, I just ran it,” DePuy said. “[Our biggest challenge] was being able to communicate who we are…[C2M] gave us the knowledge [to] start making really data informed decisions, and thinking about the future of our company, not just what's the next shiny object.”

In addition to C2M Beta, Early Stage Montana offers a one-week HyperAccelerator, mentoring, and other programs to support startups.

Remote national or global accelerators have also been a great resource for Montana entrepreneurs. Ken Fichtler, a Montana native and CEO of Gaize in Missoula, went through the A+ Accelerator hosted by the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Like C2M, the six-week A+ Accelerator program takes no money or equity from the entrepreneur and offers mentoring from successful business owners and investors. Fichtler found the program valuable in launching his startup, which is developing a real-time impairment testing and evidence capture device for cannabis.

“I think we made some good progress there and came out with a couple of advisors,” Fichtler said.

#3: Be strategic about raising money (or not)

Access to capital has improved greatly in Montana in the last 10 years thanks to the presence of Montana-based investment groups like Two Bear Capital, Next Frontier Capital, and Frontier Angels. But all the speakers agreed that raising money is still challenging. It’s also important for entrepreneurs to carefully weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of equity funding.

Molly Bradford said she has often felt the pull to pursue venture capital or angel investment, but advisors helped her realize alternative financing like a small business loan from MoFi or an expanded business line of credit from a bank could meet her company’s needs.

“Over the last eight years on this journey, there were a lot of times I thought I should get capital,” Bradford said. “I should on myself a lot… and a lot of those shoulds are like it's a new thing in Montana - I want to be part of what moves the needle forward, or like I should because women are finally getting funded…Like all these things that are just as important to the money were also values driven.”

While Bradford is still open to raising capital, she sees the benefits of waiting and retaining equity. “If next year I want to get money, now I'm in a position of power and there's no desperation.”

David Mayer said because he and his co-founders are seasoned veterans in their industry, they were less willing to give up equity to get more money up front. His team drew on their professional networks to find investors they knew personally who offered favorable terms and helpful resources.

“We were very, very selective in terms of who we are willing to work with,” Mayer said. “We wanted to work with people who would be active participants in our future success. They themselves had networks we can draw from. They themselves had experiences that we could use and capitalize on.”

Ken Fichtler previously served as Director of Economic Development for the State of Montana and was an angel investor himself before starting Gaize. He recently closed over $1.2 million in seed funding from notable Montana and Silicon Valley-based angel investors including Fritz Lanman, CEO of ClassPass. Even with his considerable experience and connections, Fichtler found the fundraising process “very, very difficult” for a company like his that needed funding for product research and development.

“I think that in Montana, it's possible to raise [money from early-stage groups] if you've got somewhere between $10,000 a month and $100,000 a month in recurring revenue,” Fichtler said. “If you're pre revenue, it's extremely difficult. There's not a lot of options.”

Fichtler offered four pieces of advice to entrepreneurs in a similar situation. First, target people who are funding businesses like yours. “Try to understand who the investors are that you can actually raise from,” Fichtler said. “Find people that are investing in your space. And no, we're not going to make somebody care about your product if they don't already. If it's outside of their thesis, they're not going to talk to you.”

Second, “It’s a numbers game,” said Fichtler. “So you just sort of have to pound the pavement until you get to enough no’s that you get a yes. For me that was about 150 no’s to get to four funds we were in due diligence with and we ended up taking capital from one group and then a handful of angel investors.”

The third recommendation was to refine your pitch. “If you’re pre revenue, you’re really telling a story,” said Fichtler. “You need to nail your story and have a deep understanding of your market and everything that you're going to do between getting capital and getting to your next capital raise or profitability.”

Fichtler’s final encouragement was “just don’t quit. It's super, super hard and demoralizing. And at the end of the day, 100% of the time you spend raising capital is wasted until it's not.”

About the Publisher:

Launched in 2014, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit association of more than 200 high tech and manufacturing companies and affiliates creating high-paying jobs in Montana. For more information, visit MTHighTech.org or subscribe to our biweekly newsletter.

About the Authors:

Nathaniel Gorin is a Content Creator intern for the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. Nate is a senior undergraduate at the University of Montana who is currently enrolled in both the marketing and creative writing programs.

Christina Quick Henderson has served as Executive Director of the Montana High Tech Business Alliance since its launch in April 2014. She teaches in the University of Montana College of Business and writes for Montana Business Quarterly and other publications.