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Entrepreneurs get a lift

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The small talk turns to margaritas Friday morning during a chairlift ride at Bolton Valley's Timberline Lodge.

Tim McCaffery explains to Virginia Munkelwitz the vexing problem margarita drinkers face: More often than not they lick the salt off of their glass rims well before the drink is finished. Obviously you can't turn the half-full glass over to reapply the salt.

Munkelwitz nods in agreement. Yes, this is a conundrum. McCaffery then moves quickly to his ingenious solution – a hand-held device called The Edge, which re-applies salt to the rim of the upright, half-full margarita glass.

There. Problem solved. And why shouldn't it be? McCaffery has applied his considerable engineering and entrepreneurial talent, which includes a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of New Hampshire, an M.S. in materials science and engineering from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, to the project.

This young CEO of Boston's Lime Designs Inc., is well beyond the quirky inventor's stage with this product. His current problem is finding investors to help him get The Edge out into the consumer barware market.

This chairlift ride is an opportunity to do just that.

The catch: He has about five minutes, the time it takes to reach the summit, to pitch The Edge. Those in the venture capital world call it an elevator pitch, a rapid-fire spiel that can be delivered during the course of an elevator ride.

McCaffery's props are few: He's restricted to passing out a business card. Beyond that, it's a combination of his communications skills, charm and, possibly, his skiing prowess.

"I was impressed," says Munkelwitz who is attending Peak Pitch Vermont with her husband, Richard, a business adviser with the Vermont Small Business Development Center. "He (McCaffery) told me he wanted to be the OXO (a high-end consumer-products company) of drinks and that his market was the gift-giver."

McCaffery is one of 35 entrepreneurs from Vermont and northern New England (one late registrant flew in from Denver) who signed up for Friday's event at the Bolton Valley resort. Peak Pitch Vermont is sponsored by Shelburne-based FreshTracks Capital, a firm that makes equity investments in companies that, according to its Web site, "demonstrate a compelling and defensible competitive advantage." This is the third year the firm has hosted the event.

Cairn Cross, FreshTracks Capital co-founder, says some of these companies were just waiting to be discovered on Friday.

The Peak Pitch event is a cross between a speed dating and a sales meeting. Each of the 35 entrepreneurs or "pitchers" is given a numbered blue bib distinguishing him or her from the 15 green-bibbed investor/advisers, or "pitchees," who have come to listen to bids for products that range from organic kitty litter to a variety of green technologies. A good pitch earns a "check" from a pitchee.

Some of the entrepreneurs hope to find sources of real funding. Others, in the early stages of product development, are seeking advice. Still others are here to hone their pitches, using the "pitchees" as sounding boards.

"We pair them up on the chairlift," says Cross. "They head up. You get the pitch, get to make comments and feedback, get off the lift. You ski down, pair up with somebody else, and do it again. So it's a little bit like speed dating in some fashion. It's pretty quick time to give your spiel: Here's who we are and what we do and what we're in need of in terms of capital."

But not all pitchers are looking for funding today.

Gretchen Dunn, vice president of Green Mountain Kitty Litter in Northfield, is waiting at the bottom of the run to be paired with a new pitchee. She's made several trips so far and says the reaction to her product – kitty litter made from waste wood that's been treated with an odor-neutralizing enzyme – has been positive. She and her partner are still working on a prototype, and she's looking for free advice. Dunn says she loves the idea of pitching on the lift and has even continued her conversations as she skis down the run.

"It's the elevator pitch on steroids. A clever spin," says New York City's David Deutsch back inside the lodge.

Deutsch is president of David N. Deutsch & Company, LLC, "the strategic financial adviser of leading middle-market companies," his business card states. He is finishing his breakfast before heading outside to lend an ear, a critical one he stresses, to this year's crop of youngish entrepreneurs who are venturing into the business world just as the economy may be slipping into a recession. For entrepreneurial types, he says, "recessions can be the best time to start a business," noting that the prospect of losing one's job, for example, can trigger the entrepreneurial spirit. "It's often the time to pull the ripcord."

Here in Vermont, Cross says, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, which accounts for the success and good turnout at this year's Peak Pitch. The quirky nature of the event, too, might have something to do with it as well.

"A lot of venture fairs tend to be held in a conference center with 40 or 50 companies and several hundred prospective investor/advisers and multiple presentations going on in different conference rooms. They tend to get specialized in some form like a software or a new media forum."

Not so with Peak Pitch, Cross stresses. "We don't put any constraints around any of this. Because of that there are some pretty interesting companies, some ideas that are probably wing nut ideas and some things that are quite viable," he says.

One Peak Pitch alumnus, from the 2006 event, is Alex Wolff, who pitched his idea for the Vermont Frost Heaves while riding the chairlift. He confesses that while no one he rode with invested that day, one of his chairlift pitches was filmed and broadcast on WCAX news that night. That publicity, he says, was a launching pad for the Heaves. "The buzz and the profile of the event were great." He adds that it had been 22 years since he'd been on skis and that he took a couple of lessons before attending the Peak Pitch event.

"For me, because I wasn't an experienced and graceful skier, it was a little nerve-wracking," Wolff says. "But the whole process of starting a business is a little nerve-wracking."

Looking at the list of registrants, Cross says he is pleased that there are not too many repeat pitchers at this year's event. He speculates that many of the previous years' companies have found funding and gotten off the ground. "Basically they are at the point where they don't feel the need to attend an event like this. There have been a pretty successful crop of new companies in Vermont in my opinion in the last couple of years." A few of this year's companies have piqued the interest of FreshTracks Capital, he says.

Back inside the lodge, pitchers and pitchees come clumping in, ski boots and all, for the big pitch off.

Here the top three companies – those who have garnered the most "checks" from investors/advisers throughout the day – give their last hurrah in hopes of winning over the audience.

This year's winner, measured by applause, is Janice Shade, president of Burlington's Orange Mountain Inc., whose sole product is all-natural soap. Free from the space and time constraints of the chairlift, Shade regales the audience with her background in all things soap related.

A senior marketing manager at Seventh Generation and in a previous life the assistant brand manager at Procter & Gamble, she knows her stuff.

But it's her final pitch/plea that wins them over: "I want to grow my company. And change the world."