BIRTH LEGEND: "In large cities, pro and college teams push high school sports off the news pages," says Jon Segal. But New Haven, Conn., where Segal covered sports for the local newspaper in 1996, had no major-league professional sports teams, so Segal wrote about high school athletics instead. Readers loved it, and Segal figured high-school-sports fans in other markets would too. He launched SchoolSports in Boston a year later and is now also publishing editions in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
WHAT'S TO LOVE: Eli Segal swings a mighty Rolodex. An old friend of Bill Clinton's, he was chief of staff for the 1992 Democratic presidential campaign and head of the Welfare-to-Work and AmeriCorps programs. His high-level contacts at large international companies have helped SchoolSports sign such weighty advertisers as Sprint and United Parcel Service. "Eli is likely to have a point of entry with just about everybody," says Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, an advisory-board member and investor.
The appeal of SchoolSports is not merely whom its chairman knows but also the people its content reaches. "Advertisers are foaming at the mouth to get an audience they can establish lifetime buying habits with," says Patrick Keane, an analyst at Jupiter Communications, in New York City. President Grant Son adds that unlike other media outlets targeting adolescents--such as Seventeen and Teen People-- SchoolSports reaches both genders. And the cost is low: an advertisement placed in all three cities' print editions, reaching 130,000 readers, is $5,200. (Students pick up the 60-page magazines free at their schools.) Ads on the company's Web site run $45 per thousand page views.
Plus, the timing seems right. Participation in high school sports is up, and alternative sports like lacrosse, water polo, and rugby are gaining in popularity. Yet among the growing ranks of high school athletes, only a few will ever meet a reporter from a local paper. "What we provide that's different from Dawson's Creek is a personal connection," says the younger Segal. "You can see your name in SchoolSports."
FLIES IN THE OINTMENT: The company is pairing its print product with an ambitious Web strategy--it plans on-line coverage of 50 cities in two years. But unlike the magazine, Schoolsports.com can work only if readers seek it out. To make sure they do, the company needs a level of on-line sophistication that's expensive--$800,000 so far--to create and maintain. "They'll need a pretty deep infrastructure to do this," says Keane.
THE "RICH MAN, POOR MAN" FACTOR: While Eli Segal orbits a stratosphere of corporate and political titans, Jon Segal and Son operate from $8-per-square-foot digs above a Midas shop. Jon Segal chose the office for its proximity to Boston University, which is juicy with free labor in the form of college interns. --M. H.
7. Changing oil on troubled waters
COMPANY: Naut-a-Care Marine Services Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.
YEAR FOUNDED: 1998
CONCEPT: Build a franchise of custom-designed boats that provide watercraft such services as oil changing, steam cleaning of marine bilges, and maintenance of closed-loop systems
PRINCIPALS: Don M. Drysdale, 52, CEO; Dan West, 40, chief operating officer; and Harry West, 78, chief financial officer
PROJECTIONS: Revenues of $281,000 in 1999, possibly hitting $1 million next year
FUNDING: $6,000 each from the three founders for the franchise's launch; plus about $100,000 from their collective savings for R&D for the company's special boats
BIRTH LEGEND: It was July 4, 1994, and franchise lawyer Drysdale was on his yacht, preparing for guests who were coming to watch the fireworks. Suddenly, the word full lit up on the loo.
"Ladies were coming!" Drysdale recalls with horror. Following another skipper's suggestion, Drysdale radioed a small business that specialized in pumping out marine-toilet holding tanks. The experience got him thinking about other work that needed to be done on the boat; asking around led him to Aqualube Inc., a local business that the two Wests ran out of a boat they'd outfitted to drain system fluids without mess or environmental damage. Impressed, Drysdale persuaded them to franchise their concept. (Drafting the business agreement and dealing with a traveling and often-unreachable fourth partner delayed the launch until 1998.)
WHAT'S TO LOVE: The market Naut-a-Care seeks to navigate is stable and underserved, according to Caroline Ajootian, director of consumer affairs for the Boat Owners Association of the United States. There are about 17 million registered inboard boats in this country, and most of their owners hate wasting precious sailing hours on such un-fun activities as oil changes. Naut-a-Care customers don't even have to pull into a dock: the company's ocean-going monohull crafts are equipped with two 90-horsepower outboard engines, portable holding tanks, vacuums, and other mounted tools and can pull alongside other vessels to perform their services.
