Dreams Can Come True

“If some wonderful people hadn’t come forward and done things for us, I wouldn’t be here today.” Matt Larson, president of StowMaster, was talking about how he got his company started. Wanting to carve out a niche in the premium sporting goods arena (top 20% of the fishing product market for avid anglers), StowMaster’s (www.stowmaster.net) first product is a fold-up fishing net. “We are building a brand, not just a product. Cabela’s was our first customer.”

The first product is aimed at muskie fishermen. Other products are planned for bass, fly fishing, net-lite (a light on the end of the net), a folding duck blind and other hinged products. Several patents protect their product niche.

The company is located in Lake Mills, IA (population 2,140) in a 10,000 sf building where they can produce hundreds of nets/day.

Bob Lembke, president of the North Iowa Venture Capital Fund LLC (www.niacc.edu/pappajohn/nivcf/index.html), explained how his angel investor fund put together the investment funds to start StowMaster, “We determined that Matt would need about $500,000 to get started. We got $100,000 from the state, $100,000 from our fund, $100,000 from one of our angel investors directly, and $200,000 in equity from another source.” Lembke’s fund is composed of 61 members, all of which have a vote on an investment from 11 contiguous counties in north-central IA.

Larson and Lembke were two the presenters at the 21st Annual SMART Conference put on by the Iowa Department of Economic Development and The Iowa Utility Association. My remarks were on the importance of entrepreneurs in the development of small towns. I also told them how Iowa’s work in the area of entrepreneurism and its 16 angel investor networks like Lembke’s, were putting it on the leading edge in this key area.

Larson’s final comment was, “Share the dream. Don’t be a control freak. It is better to have 40% of something spectacular than 90% of something mediocre.”