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Rob Ryan’s Entrepreneur-America Opens Its Doors to the Finalists of the Montana University System John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition

Rob Ryan’s Entrepreneur-America http://www.entrepreneur-america.org Opens Its Doors to the Finalists of the Montana University System John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition http://www.business.umt.edu/made/programs/biz.asp

There are mentors and then there is Rob Ryan. How many mentors have built three very successful companies from scratch? While they may have thought that they’d heard every question possible during the grueling several days of the competition, they came away with a sense of awe after meeting with Rob Ryan http://www.entrepreneur-america.com/?pageid=about_rob and talking about their business models. It was truly a unique opportunity to learn from one of the best entrepreneurs in the world.

I say that because of the very high valuation of his first company, Ascend that grew from an idea to a world leader that employed over 4300 and significantly improved the local economy.

That success has been followed by others such as Montana’s own RightNow Technologies http://www.rightnow.com which grew to be the largest employer (1000 employees) in Gallatin county where it has spured an entrepreneurial community that has set the pace for Montana.

Rob is now actively working with Missoula/Bitterroot companies so that we can achieve the same entrepreneurial success here in Missoula and Ravalli counties.

Other significant successes include Silicon Spice and Looksmart. NetCracker (900 employees) was just purchased and he’s got two more in the works, — Dilithium – http://www.dilithiumnetworks.com and PatientKeeper – http://www.patientkeeper.com .

Not bad for someone who enjoys the Bitterroot river of Montana outside his kitchen window.

The Montana University System John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition:
"Thousands in prizes,
34 world-class judges,
15 MT collegiate teams,
and it was indeed the experience of a lifetime" The competition this year awarded more than $25,000 in prize money to top-placing students. UM’s graduate students swept the high-growth division, while students from the college of technologies in both Helena and Great Falls took top honors in the lifestyles division.

After they’d placed 1st in the competition, Schuyler Mann and Colin Stoner of Openlink Mobile http://openlinkmobile.com/ (Executive Summary:
http://www.matr.net/files/OpenlinkMobileExecutiveSummary05.20.09MASTER.pdf )
and 3rd place and People’s Choice winner Scott Gray of Eden Systems (Executive Summary:
http://www.matr.net/files/EdenSystems.doc.docx )
accepted Rob’s generous invitation to meet with him at his Bitterroot ranch. It’s usually a long and trying process to get invited but Rob is so committed to a more entrepreneurial Montana that he waived the admission process to allow the teams to meet with him.

While they were a little nervous about meeting someone with so much experience and success, they were quickly set at ease by Rob’s easy going manner and total focus on their business model. He has the ability to cut directly to the core of the company and to what the entrepreneurs have to do to first survive and then succeed. Fast paced Q&A between Rob and the entrepreneurs that included "Start with your elevator pitch", "What’s your value proposition?", "Who else is in your space?", "How are you going to value your services?" were just a few of the questions in the first couple of minutes. You could see the perspiration forming on their foreheads as they worked to come up with the answers that would best describe their ideas. "Why didn’t we think of that?" was undoubtedly running through their heads at an increasing clip.

Scott Gray of Eden systems said: "I had the incredible fortune to have a meeting with Rob Ryan. I learned a lot and had a great experience. Russ recently asked me to write a few words about what I got out of my time with Rob. The first and most important was that I got another perspective, especially one with as much experience as Rob does. Rob gave me great suggestions about developing a franchise profile, something that I had not truly thought of.

But Rob did not stop with simply throwing out a suggestion; he gave very specific advice as to what would be needed to implement that advice, and various contacts in the industry to help further understand and develop that course of action. In addition, Rob made me feel like even if he did not fully understand the industry I was going to be playing in, that he was genuinely interested in the future of the company and wanted to stay informed."

"Get down and dirty" was an ever-present theme from Rob. You’ve got to talk to your customers to find out what they need and what its worth to them. Both teams took this to heart and started building lists of potential clients. Now they were getting to the meat of building a company instead of just writing a business plan. This was getting real.

Schuyler Mann of Openlink wrote: "Rob Ryan’s time is a valuable resource, and the opportunity to talk business with the former CEO of a industry changing company is a chance many aspiring entrepreneurs will never get. Rob’s time is valuable because of his understanding of the necessary ingredients for a successful business. More importantly, Rob is able to communicate these concepts in a way that is simple to understand and easy to remember. “Don’t rob delis, rob banks,” he advised us. This was Rob’s way of saying that entrepreneurs need to go where the money is, or serve those customers who will be able to pay. Over the course of a couple hours, Rob entertained and impressed us with his energetic, anecdotal style of communicating business philosophy. He left with us a valuable list of takeaways, a course for action, and an open door for continued business mentoring."

Both teams now have the opportunity to continue to keep Rob informed on their progress, questions and opportunities. We’re going to follow the progress of Openlink and Eden Systems in the coming months so stay tuned. They might just be the next Google. They certainly have worthy business models with excellent entrepreneurs.

Montana should be proud that this relationship between Rob Ryan and the University of Montana has been and is developing.

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