Young companies get a boost through EO's mentoring initiative

Nate Pearson walked away from a high-paying software engineer position at International Game Technology last February to grow his newly launched business that sells training software to cycling enthusiasts.

Within four months he'd earned enough to replace his salary at IGT.

Despite the early success, Pearson, chief executive officer of Trainer Road of Reno, is turning to the Reno-Tahoe chapter of Entrepreneurs' Organization to help him take his business to a higher level.

EO's recently created MegaMind mentoring program matched five regional businesses with successful entrepreneurs in the Greater Reno-Tahoe area to help the local business owners gain valuable business acumen and increase their sales.

Along with Pearson, the other businesses owners include:

* Sarah Toney of Hi Point Coffee

* Layne Linebaugh of Alpine Wellness Center

* Erin Anderson of Trinity Applied Internet

* KC Mares of Megawatt Consulting

The MegaMind program launched last summer, and Reno-Tahoe EO chose its finalists in September. The program wraps up in March. The five business owners meet once a month for a four-hour forum meeting and also attend several day-long seminars. The first seminar featured workshops by sales guru Alice Heiman and Shandel Slaten of True Life Coaching.

Business owners also meet individually with EO members to discuss ways to better position their businesses, create marketing strategies and deal with staffing and legal issues such as forming partnerships and handling lease negotiations.

Laura Partridge, president of Creative Concepts Media + Marketing in Reno and Truckee and a member of EO, says more than 30 regional businesses entered the MegaMind mentoring contest. The program was sponsored by the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada and Nevada's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Steve Conine, an EO member who is president of AccuStaff and Talent Framework, says one of the goals of the program from EO's perspective was to grow potential membership in EO by helping groom smaller entrepreneurs in the Truckee Meadows for greater success. Entrepreneurs' Organization members are business owners or majority partners who run a business that turns at least $1 million in annual sales.

"We wanted to take our expertise from our various industries and give back to the Reno community," Conine says. "These struggles we have already gone through and overcome. We can help them in an early stage of their careers avoid some of the pitfalls that we experienced."

Pearson says the MegaMind program has provided a wealth of information. Pearson has the back-end operations in hand it's the nuts and bolts of business operations where he lacks knowledge.

Trainer Road provides a cycling training software system for stationary training rides. The software includes workout and training programs and also monitors the rider's power, heartbeat, speed and cadence.

"I don't know what I don't know," Pearson says. "We are new, and we are successful, but we have a lot of questions. It is nice to have these people who are impartial and are sharing their own experiences help us make decisions.

Trainer Road's staff includes two other partners, a software developer and a cycling coach. More than 50 percent of the company's sales come from international clients in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and New Zealand. In just over 11 months cyclists have logged more than 104,000 workouts through the Trainer Road training program. Pearson, who maintains the operation from his home in South Reno, says the MegaMind program will help him reach higher levels of success.

"Some of the things that they bring up I haven't been exposed to before. Say an international company wants to do a deal with us. I don't now how to structure a deal, and I don't know if we should be getting patents. All that is good insight. Our product, I don't need any help with, but the part of running a business we just don't know because we are inexperienced."

Sarah Toney, owner of Hi Point Coffee, agrees that the business expertise she's exposed to will help her run her business more smoothly.

Toney started the business by running coffee carts at regional hospitals before opening Hi Point Coffee on Robb Drive three years ago. She relocated the business to Kings Row and McCarran Boulevard this summer and faces the daunting task of re-growing a loyal clientele at a new location.

"Moving was a big risk, so any kind of wisdom I can get is really important to me," Toney says. "I have an idea of where I want to go, but exactly how to get from where I am to where I want to be I didn't necessarily have the faith that I could get there on my own."

Toney, who studied molecular biology in college, says the MegaMind program is helping her improve many facets of business operations, including finance, management structure, human resource practices and marketing.

"I'm ready to not be fumbling and making stuff up," she says. "I am ready to be more established, a little more comfortable and confident in how I run my business. We do a pretty good job here, but I want to bring everything up a notch or two better."

Partridge says Reno-Tahoe EO will gauge the effectiveness of the initial MegaMind program before deciding to make the event an annual affair in conjunction with EDAWN and NCET.