Local entrepreneurs inspire students at MSU

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

Sarah Greenshields always knew she wanted to start her own business. Thanks to Montana State University’s entrepreneurship program, she felt she had the knowledge and confidence to do it.

Greenshields, 26, graduated in December, but she’s already working to launch her company, called Genre & Mode, making stylish bags to carry the medical supplies that she and other diabetics must have on hand.

“You can look cute and you can maintain your health,” Greenshields said Tuesday.

She was one of six young business owners who spoke at MSU’s Entrepreneur Day to about 60 high school students from Bozeman, Livingston, Billings and the Rocky Boy reservation.

MSU’s award-winning entrepreneurship center is the only one like it in the state, Business College Dean Rich Semenik said.

MSU offers a minor in entrepreneurship for students who have the “fire in the belly” to want to start their own businesses, Semenik said. It gives students hands-on experience working with entrepreneurs.

“There’s something really exciting about being around entrepreneurs who have that passion to start something from scratch,” MSU student Lukas Fleener told the crowd.

Two of the companies that current MSU students work with were started by last year’s MSU graduates, said Gary Bishop, the Business College’s entrepreneurship instructor.

One of those is Greenshields, who said she has three students helping her with marketing, research and communicating with manufacturers.

The downside of starting your own business is “I am broke,” Greenshields said. She’s working at a second job until her business takes off, while also raising two children. To finance her company, she’s using money she won in a business competition while an MSU student.

“I can’t wait until Sept. 30,” Greenshields said, when the bags will be ready to sell.

Zach Anderson told the students that he saw a need for casual restaurants in Bozeman and since 1996 has successfully opened LaParilla, The Garage and the Naked Noodle. He didn’t go to college, but grew up in the restaurant business and learned by working in other people’s restaurants in Colorado.

“I worked 50, 60 hours a week the first year or two,” Anderson said. “The first couple years were very thin and scary.”

Mark Larimer said he started his first business right out of college n a hiking adventure company that made no money but let him hike in Maui. He later had his own marketing business, started at RightNow Technologies, and now is co-founder of a new software company, Foundant Technologies. It helps grant-giving foundations manage all their records on-line.

“For me, the fun part is starting it up,” Larimer said. Another great thing about being an entrepreneur is, he said, “You control your own destiny.”

Jim Evans started his first business when he was a Bozeman High School student. He fixed up an old van, turned it into an ice cream truck, painted it like a cow and launched Worldwide Ice Cream. He made less than minimum wage but pretty soon had his friends working for him.

“It was so much fun,” Evans said. Now he works in his family’s business, The Glass Doctor, which is expanding around Montana. He advised students, “You can have a huge fortune, but if you don’t love what you’re doing every day, it’s not worth it.”

Photographer Lorie Hoffman graduated from MSU but realized she needed business classes if she wanted to market her own photography and not wait tables forever. She made a profit in her second year.

“It’s terrifying because you’re dumping lots of money into something,” Hoffman said of starting her business, L.A. Hoffman In Focus Fine Art. But she added, “That’s OK, because the rewards are so great.”

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