Get rich slow: three local LILOpreneurs share their stories 

Not long ago, Time Magazine ran a story about what it cleverly referred to as “LILOpreneurs.” Personally, you can’t have enough acronyms for my money, but I should explain that LILO stands for “little in, lots out.”  The story refers to a recessionary phenomenon characterized by the creation of Web-related business models that put a premium on innovation, opportunism … and lots of sweat equity in lieu of venture capital – a refreshing option to the dotcom bubble, for those of you who still remember that particular bust cycle.

The key to the LILO approach is having the patience to let a business model unfold organically, which in the era of social media can actually take place at a faster rate the brute force approach of capital-intensive marketing campaigns.  And after all, when your return-on-invest requirements are small enough, patience is a much easier virtue to cultivate than it is when a rabid pack of investors is breathing down your neck.

My interest in this particular subject comes in part as a result of my own personal efforts to launch what I’ve no doubt would meet Time’s criteria for a “LILOpreneurial” venture; but rather than seize on a flimsy excuse to blow my own horn, I’d rather devote the remainder of this blog to three local folks whose stories would similarly, if not more appropriately, qualify: Jason Crawforth, Dave Quintana, and Jennifer Reynolds.

As a new feature of my IBR blogs, I’ve linked each of these stories to a podcast interview.  If you like this feature, please let Idaho Business Review managing editor, Robb Hicken, know just what a visionary he is for hiring me as a blogger – or just send me money.

Equal parts IT geek, serial entrepreneur, and restaurant impresario, I like to refer to Jason Crawforth as one of Boise’s renaissance men.  His latest endeavor is the creation of iPhone applications.  In case you haven’t recently seen an iPhone ad, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was not just a cell phone but a mobile computing platform – since that, in fact, is exactly what it is. During college, Jason had written a thesis on how Apple’s iTunes had disrupted the recording industry’s business model, and he was intrigued by the potential for arguably the planet’s largest music store to eliminate the single greatest obstacle to success in software development: distribution. 

The game changer created by iTunes, iPhone, and the iPod Touch convinced Jason to launch JLC Mobile in Q4 2008, and for the first time he found himself in the business of developing consumer software applications.  His first product, “iMake Decisions”, was a more sophisticated version of popular “coin flip” apps.  His latest, “iMake Sounds”, puts a quirky little sound effects generator into the palm of your hand, and was introduced in January of this year. Thanks to the world’s largest software applications emporium (in which it costs a mere $99 to set up a virtual booth), JLC Mobile’s latest foray vaulted at one point to the fourth most popular iPhone app in Germany – proof that the people who brought you the Thousand Year Reich haven’t lost their sense of whimsy. Last time I checked, Jason still hasn’t the foggiest idea why his product has outsold “iBeer” in Deutschland.   

Dave Quintana isn’t “Building Apps That Make You Smile” (to quote JLC Mobile’s tagline), but he does want to pimp your Twitter.  Dave had been doing graphic design for the past 15 year, and at one point in time he worked for the Boise Hawks, but after becoming unemployed when the company he worked for went bankrupt (I feel your pain, bro), he eschewed the traditional agency gig to focus on a more grass roots approach to outbound network marketing tools.  If we can all be our own media, doesn't it stand to reason that we should all have our own media brand?  Quintana certainly thinks so – and less than a year ago he created a design company, Defiant Interactive, to create high-powered visual representations of his customers' brands with accompanying social media marketing programs.  Sounds like your average agency concept, you say?  There is a significant difference with Dave's business model: his customer base is not limited to corporate entities, but instead extends to virtually everyone who sets up a Tiwtter or Facebook account.  Presciently, in the era of American Idol and reality TV, Quintana believes his business model is perfectly adapted to what he refers to as “the celebritization of America”. 

If the above ventures don’t resonate with your life situation, newly minted LILOpreneur Jennifer Reynolds has a business model that will make sense to any guy whose lack of romantic impulse destined him for the doghouse.  Just a few weeks ago, Jennifer launched what is arguably (if you believe her Twitter profile @slingflower) the world’s first “Twitter-driven floral delivery service”.  The business concept behind Slingflower began with a challenge that many women can relate to: how to overcome the man in your life’s many excuses for not bringing you flowers. 

Slingflower follows a simple enough business model: Jennifer works with local growers who put together custom floral bouquets, she features them on her Twitter site, and on a specified delivery day the flowers are received by the folks who ordered them via the site’s PayPal function. To date, Jennifer estimates that she has invested less than $1,000 in launching her business – which means that even at price points between $7.99 and $14.99, she doesn’t have to sling a log of flowers to at least break even.  

One thing I’ve always admired about America’s unique entrepreneurial environment, especially when compared to that of other countries, is that failure is seen as a necessary step to becoming successful rather than a sin worthy of ritual seppuku.  And the further advantage of the LILO model is that it reduces the cost of failure to little more than a modest tuition fee at my favorite alma mater, the school of hard knocks. Regardless of what the future holds for the folks I’ve featured in this blog, they’ve already demonstrated what I believe to be the most important attribute of the true entrepreneur: read the need and feed the need.  I invite you to listen to their podcast interviews via the above links.  After all, we may be working for them some day soon.

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