Two Durango entrepreneurs, the first graduates of the SCAPE program for new businesses, delivered pitches to potential investors Monday night.
Tristan Rubadeau, founder of ReBill, and Ilan Paltrow, the founder of CloseoutBikes.com, took the stage at Durango Arts Center, clicking through slides detailing their business plans for a group of about 40 investors and business officials.
They also fielded sometimes probing questions from audience members who bored into the details of the investment pitches.
“They did good,” said Jim Mackay, co-founder of the Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs, or SCAPE.
Rubadeau and Paltrow underwent four months of refining their business plans and pitches with the help of Mackay and other mentors before Monday’s public unveiling.
“Pitch night is the beginning of the process, not the end,” Mackay said. “They’ve got to do this over and over again.”
Both fledgling companies seek to use technology to untangle inefficiencies in business operations
Rubadeau left his job in customer service at Mercury to launch ReBill. The company automates payment reconciliation for small businesses using the firms’ existing Intuit QuickBooks software.
One local business that’s now a ReBill customer was spending 16 hours a month on billing. “We knew there had to be a better way,” Rubadeau said.
He’s identified potential customers such as homeowners’ associations, landscape and recycling companies, and day-care businesses.
ReBill’s services cost $80 to $160 a month based on volume. Rubadeau is targeting businesses with 50 to 300 customers they regularly bill.
“They’ve been hearing for decades the check is in the mail,” he said. “We can beat that.”
Rubadeau projects ReBill will break even in April 2015. He sought $300,000 in investor funding for a 30 percent stake in the company.
“Automatic payment is the future of the payment industry,” he said.
Paltrow’s CloseoutBikes.com seeks to help consumers find – and dealers unload – high-priced bicycles that would otherwise sit in showrooms. Dealers and manufacturers can use the website to show bikes to consumers, who are then directed to a nearby bike shop that has the bike in stock.
Paltrow said his model doesn’t cut dealerships out of the process.
“We’re not disrupting the existing channel,” he said. “We’re elevating it.”
Paltrow said there are typically about 200,000 bikes left over in warehouses each year.
“It’s a very inefficient model, and the bikes get jammed up in the pipeline,” he said.
Competitors Paltrow identified include bicycle-magazine ads, eBay and Craigslist. Paltrow said CloseoutBikes.com will be cheaper and more targeted than magazine ads, take a smaller cut than eBay and be more effective than Craigslist.
Paltrow is working to line up dealers and manufacturers to participate in the website. He said he’s already reached agreements with two manufacturers and several dealers, including five local bike shops. Paltrow said he’s roped in an initial investor to the tune of $35,000.
He was seeking $350,000 for a one-third stake in his company. Paltrow projected to break even by March 2016.
Both entrepreneurs said their companies could prove attractive acquisition targets for larger firms.
Doug Lyon, dean of the School of Business at Fort Lewis College, said the presenters “had very solid ideas and demonstrated a clear grasp of what they were trying to accomplish.”
Ed Morlan, executive director of the Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado, said the entrepreneurs got their points across, even if the presentations were not fully polished.
“They showed their sincerity and their passion,” he said.
Asked if Durango’s investment community has enough private funding to back both companies – which together need more than $600,000 to meet their targets – Morlan said the money is available.
“Yep,” he said. “It is.”
cslothower@durangoherald.com
