Retailers like natural-foods supermarket Trader Joe's are also welcoming Airborne. "When I do products, I'm not iffy about them," says Lori T. Latta, a senior buyer at Trader Joe's. "In our nutritionist's opinion, this has merit." Direct sales are also brisk: Knight-McDowell Labs has moved 50,000 packages of Airborne, priced at $5 to $8, through its Web site and an 800 number.
FLIES IN THE OINTMENT: "More and more big players and house brands are taking up shelf space, and that leaves less space for newcomers," says Lynette Thwaites, managing editor of Nutrition Business Journal. Lack of familiarity is also a prob- lem: plop-plop-fizz-fizz notwithstanding, most American consumers don't use many effer- vescents.
THE "DANCES WITH WOLVES" FACTOR: The McDowells have stirred up significant buzz by extracting endorsements from their celebrity contacts. Rider McDowell says that Kevin Costner liked Airborne so much that he asked Warner Brothers to stock it on its corporate jets. The San Francisco 49ers' training staff swears by the vitamin-laden brew. Just how glam an item is Airborne becoming? Consider this: the first ad for the product outside the airline trades and the Internet appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. --M. H.
START-UP TIP
Best of breeders
Some people think business incubators exist only to nurture high-tech companies. Others see them as mere sources of cheap office space.
Wrong on both counts, says Dinah Adkins, executive director of the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA), in Athens, Ohio. Adkins points out that today there are more than 600 business incubators in North America, up from just 12 in 1980. Services vary widely, but a good incubator should provide business assistance (such as counseling and training), mentoring services, shared equipment, and computer access, as well as the synergies and support of other start-ups.
Nor do all hatcheries specialize in high-tech eggs. The Denver Enterprise Center's Kitchen Center, for example, is home to 26 organizations that use the $1.4-million culinary facility to develop salsas, gourmet teas, and other comestibles. The Entergy Arts Business Center, in New Orleans, meanwhile, provides practical business assistance to nonprofit arts groups, as well as to performance and visual artists. Despite resistance from many who cling to the image of the "starving artist," the entrepreneurial model has proved successful, says director Mary Kahn. "It points people in the right direction and forces them to get a handle on these issues," she says.
To obtain a list of incubators near you, visit the NBIA's Web site, or send a self- addressed, stamped envelope to NBIA, 20 East Circle Dr., Suite 190, Athens, OH 45701. The organization can also send you a list of guidelines for choosing the right incubator. --Anne Marie Borrego
START-UP TIP
Funding for the rest of us
Not every start-up is meant to go down the initial-public-offering or venture-capital road, but there are plenty of alternatives if you know where to look. For starters, try these articles from recent issues of Inc. To view an article on-line, go to www.inc.com/incmagazine/, select "browse by issue," and type in the appropriate month and year.
START-UP TIP
The plug-and-play office
Linda Kellogg is the start-up's starter-upper. While head of human resources at fast-growing Venture Law Group, based in Menlo Park, Calif., she organized so many office moves and openings that she figured others could benefit from her expertise. So in 1996 she launched San Jose-based Start-up Resources, which helps companies get their offices up and running quickly.
Start-up Resources manages everything from finding and furnishing office space to setting up benefits and payroll systems. Kellogg and her three employees have so far handled start-up operations for 30 companies. Most have paid--at least in part--in almighty equity.
Kellogg's services are in demand because even the sharpest entrepreneurs "don't know how to go about actually starting a business," she says. And what are their most common mistakes? For one thing, they spend too much time checking out used-furniture prices and not enough on recruiting and product development. Or they might hire two or three employees before even thinking about setting up a workers' compensation system, something that Kellogg says can be done in an hour. -- Karen Dillon
