Giving Back to the Hometown

I had lunch yesterday with 40 year old dynamo Scott Molander, one of the many serial entrepreneurs that I am fortunate to have met during my travels this year around the country. Scott grew up on a wheat farm in Crosby, North Dakota, about 8 miles from the Canadian border. He graduated from Dickinson State University and got his first job with Footlocker. They put him in the inner city of Chicago. He vividly remembers the trip to Chicago, “I had never seen a toll booth before and didn’t know what to do.” As you’ll see, he quickly learned.

He worked for Footlocker for several years around the country, ended up in Indianapolis, when he and Glen Cambell (No not that one…this one is from Cape Girardeau, MO, one of my top 100 agurbs®) who was also with Footlocker, decided to start their own company. “We raised $110,000 from Angel investors back home in North Dakota. No one in Indianapolis would bite on our idea of selling sports hats.” George Berger, one of his Dickinson professors was the biggest investor and helped to bring in venture backing from Bluestem in Sioux Falls, SD, which turned a $7 million investment into $60 million.

They started on November 3, 1995 and had 5 stores by the end of 1996. They quickly grew their chain of Hat World stores to 110 stores by the end of 1999 and bought out their largest competitor, Lids, in 2001. Earlier this year they were looking to take the company public when a buyer matched their price of 7x EBITDA and they sold the company for $177 million.

Scott took six months off to be with his young family, but “six months was enough.” He is back on the entrepreneurial journey looking for great people with good ideas. He told me, “Number one is great people. If you have a great idea with average people you are in trouble.”
He is running with a new idea/company called Simple Furniture, which will sell a complete line of furniture which can be assembled without tools. He plans an upper end line for sale at Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn and other high end retailers and also a lower end line for sale to students.

Scott is giving back to his hometown of Crosby, ND (population 1,312) in a number of ways. He is assisting a local company that exports peas and lentils; developing a Tech Center with some IBM retirees from the community and help from a Microsoft grant; and trying to figure out a way to fill a modern pasta plant coop that went broke. He also is helping Dickinson State University with a new entrepreneurial program they are initiating.

He’s on the move and I’m going to get to travel around North Dakota with him for a week in April, giving talks in various towns. With him as my tour guide I’m sure that I’ll have some wonderful stories to relay to you.