Hands on help

Hands on help

ENTREPRENEURS by Jean Gruss | Editor Lee/Collier

The Gulf Coast is full of retired executives who are ready to help budding entrepreneurs. Abbie Sladick turned to them to help her build a successful business around an innovative idea.

There's an unwritten code among entrepreneurs and it goes something like this: Thou shalt freely help thy fellow entrepreneur in need.

One of the beneficiaries of this code is Abbie Sladick, a Naples entrepreneur who has developed a unique bathroom grab bar that is both stylish and compliant with disabilities regulations.

Her company, Great Grabz, is negotiating contracts with major hotel companies to retrofit institutional-looking grab bars with her more attractive models.

Helping her down the path from idea to sales is George Braendle, the retired president and CEO of a Europe-based Dow Chemical subsidiary. Braendle, who now lives in Bonita Springs, recognized Sladick's entrepreneurial streak when he met her and he offered to help.

Sladick says she understands the code too when she accepted the help from Braendle and other mentors. "They were honest that I had the same responsibility" to help others one day, she says.

Besides agreeing to help others, young entrepreneurs have to be ready to use mentors' advice to show their appreciation.

"What's great about Abbie is that she doesn't have an ego," says Braendle. "She actually listens to people. When she hears good advice she acts on it."

Sladick says mentors are the "greatest thing in the world." They can help you find investors, establish distribution channels and discover the best manufacturers.

Grab this idea

It all started when Sladick, an interior designer, had an older customer who refused to install grab bars in her bathroom because they looked like those she had seen in a hospital. "This customer would rather fall than have her friends know she has a grab bar," Sladick recalls.

Sladick couldn't find a grab bar that didn't look like it belonged in a nursing home. So she designed one that looks like a designer towel rack. The beauty of her grab bars is that the fittings slide along the bar so that an installer can attach them to the solid studs behind the wall.

With help from friends and family, she raised $200,000 to get started. "I had a great idea and they believed in me," Sladick says.

Through friends and colleagues, she learned about machining and metalworking and designed her first grab bar five years ago. It was then her new company, Great Grabz, was born.

She had identified two markets that could use her products. The first was home renovations for older people. The other was hotel operators who needed to refurbish their bathrooms so they're compliant with disabilities regulations. In particular, she would target high-end hotels that are looking for stylish elements for their guest bathrooms.

Best of all, there was no competition. You can't get a stylish and disabilities-compliant grab bar at Home Depot and large manufacturers had not invested the time and resources to develop them. "We had the products and we knew the baby boomer market would explode," Sladick says.

At a trade show a few years ago, Sladick says she met a man who would be the company's first mentor: Gavin Sword.

A venture capitalist from California, he's the president of Automated Shading in Naples, a company that makes motorized window shades. Sladick says Sword has agreed to help her raise more money for the company's expansion.

She then met Braendle and through both men she was introduced to numerous contacts in manufacturing and distribution. That would prove to be invaluable because Sladick had to lower those overhead costs to improve her company's financial performance.

Bringing costs down

Originally, Sladick's cost to manufacture and distribute the grab bars were so high that wholesale prices ranged from $300 to $800 for each grab bar.

So with the help of a middleman who was referred by Braendle, Sladick shifted manufacturing to China. Now, distributors sell her grab bars at retail from $200 to $370.

But outsourcing to China wasn't as easy as it seemed. For one thing, everything seemed to be done at the last minute. "The Chinese don't like to tell you bad news," she says. If there's a glitch, you'll likely only find out too late.

Now that pricing and distribution are competitive, however, Sladick has to be careful not to let growth overwhelm her.

"When you have a young business and as you start to be successful, everyone says you should expand with more products, more distribution channels," Braendle says. But overhead expenses can quickly swamp a young business as it tries to expand in all different directions, he warns.

And competitors who could crush you might feel threatened. For example, what if Kohler made disability-compliant bathroom fixtures? "She cannot compete with those people on a one-on-one basis," Braendle says.

For now, he's encouraging her to reinvest any additional profit margins into new products and careful expansion.

A big part of that cost is research and development.

But Sladick found a way to reduce those costs by forging an alliance with the University of Buffalo's biomechanics and universal-design departments. The university recently received a $5 million grant to design products for an aging population, including those for Great Grabz.

Searching for an angel

So far, customers have included homebuilder WCI Communities and the Ritz-Carlton Hotels in Naples. But the hotel business now seems more promising than the residential market as the homebuilding industry struggles. And international markets may be fertile ground too; Sladick recently met a distributor with 150 European outlets.

For now, there are just two styles of grab bars. But she's working on others, including an illuminated version, as well as other bathroom-related fixtures that she won't disclose. Last year's sales were about $200,000 and she projects $1 million in revenues this year and $2 million in 2009.

To grow her company, Sladick says she's looking for angel investors, though she's reluctant to say exactly how much money she needs. She's connected with potential investors at the Gulf Coast Venture Forum, a group in Naples that brings together entrepreneurs and investors. Says Sladick: "I've been able to self fund to this point, but we're looking for capital to expand."

But Sladick is very careful about who will invest. "I told her to be very selective," Braendle says. "Look for a single individual or a company that has a strategic interest."

A slowing economy isn't making things easy. "It's a difficult time to find investors," Braendle says. "Offer an anti-dilution structure to the deal. People are always worried about [shareholder] dilution."

Sladick is concerned about giving away control of the company in return for angel money.

"Don't give away too much too fast," she says. Besides, she says, "A true angel does not want control."

Despite the challenges of building her company, Sladick still has time for her two children, ages 10 and 13, and looking after her small 2.5-acre farm in Collier County that has sheep, chickens, rabbits and tortoises. "I don't sleep a lot; I think a lot at night," she laughs. "I'm not a good housekeeper and I don't cook."

And eventually, she plans to sell the company.

That's OK with her three employees, to whom she's given options to purchase stock in her young company. "They've given so much of their lives," she says. "I understand my strengths and that's startups, not managing a large company."

Tips for young

entrepreneurs

Abbie Sladick, who runs Naples-based company that sells stylsish bathroom grab bars, says she hopes to help other entrepreneurs succeed. She's especially keen to help other women who have the desire to start a business but don't know where to turn to. Here's her advice:

•You need a good lawyers and accountant right from the start so you won't do anything to jeopardize your young business.

•Do everything you can to protect your intellectual property.

•Starting a business is going to cost more than your wildest dreams.

•Actively seek networking opportunities.

•Develop a good relationship with your banker.

•Ask for help. You'll be surprised how much help people are willing to give you by just asking.

•Be a good listener. You can't act on good advice if you don't listen.

•Mentors are the key to your success.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Company: Great Grabs

Industry: Bathroom fixtures

Key: Retired executives are a great source of advice, but be ready to listen and act.