Green acres: why some entrepreneurs are saying "Goodbye, city life."

Entrepreneur, Oct, 1997 by Brian Steinberg

Before you head for the hills, however, ask yourself: Are you ready for the country? If you're nodding your head enthusiastically - and you've put in many hours of research - then sell the house, pack the bags, gather the spouse and kids, and head for someplace like Fairfield, Iowa. Dubbed "Silicorn Valley," this town of approximately 10,000 boasts several software firms, an oil brokerage, a tofu maker, a telecommunications business and a chimney supplies wholesaler - all founded by entrepreneurs seeking a simpler way of life.

One of those entrepreneurs is Ed Malloy, a member of the Fairfield City Council and president of Danaher Oil Co., an oil brokerage with $1.5 million in revenues last year. Like many other Fairfield newcomers, Malloy was attracted to the town because of its Maharishi University of Management, which focuses on the study of transcendental meditation.

"[This is] a very charming town with a manufacturing and agricultural base but virtually no jobs available for the kinds of people who were moving here," Malloy says. He believes the primary reason so many people relocated to Fairfield - the pursuit of a more spiritual life - engendered creativity and drive. Thus was born a successful base of self-starters.

Small-business owners who switch to a more rural existence often have something more secular in mind than Maharishi devotees do, such as financial well-being. For these entrepreneurs, hurdles litter the track. They must absorb the shock of adjusting to rural culture, navigate the difficulties of keeping family together, and discover new business practices necessitated by an out-of-the-way location. For many businesspeople relocating to an area that offers a less hurried way of life, finding the "om" that those Fairfield residents value may prove less helpful than putting a little "oomph" into their businesses.

* WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM

The rural life has its advantages. Many small towns in states such as Iowa and Indiana are crying out for new businesses. Dependent for generations on sagging agricultural or manufacturing economies, these towns need entrepreneurs and the jobs they supply to stay economically viable. In exchange, they offer lower overhead costs and fewer of the agonies of city life, such as crime and pollution.

"I think people are getting fed up with where they are," says Jon Bard, who left the New York City public relations company he founded to become a consultant and newsletter writer in Fairplay, Colorado. His audiotape series and courses at Colorado Free University teach entrepreneurs how to succeed in rural communities.

Still, the decision to move to a rural location is not without its problems. Many who leave the city do so too quickly, before they've put together a business plan or even explored the region or town to which they plan to move. This lack of foresight often portends failure, Bard warns.

Jeff Raim left behind 18 years of running various businesses in the Tucson, Arizona, area so he could, as he puts it, "have a life." A lifelong entrepreneur, Raim, 42, set out on a two-year search, trekking through towns like Bountiful, Utah, and Bozeman, Montana, until he came upon the village of Angel Fire, New Mexico, a ski resort community with just 400 permanent residents. After moving there in 1995, he started a management consulting firm, Empowered Management Inc. Consulting with clients by phone, fax and the Internet, Raim generated close to $250,000 in sales last year and has nearly 40 clients nationwide.

But it wasn't easy getting started. Raim discovered, as do many entrepreneurs who leave the city, that even the most basic services found in the city are hard to come by in smaller communities. Until recently, for example, Angel Fire had no local access number for the Internet service Raim uses, forcing him to pay long-distance charges to access the Net.

"You [rely on] things like Federal Express," he says. "Well, overnight service to remote places is usually not overnight." Post office boxes are not always accessible, he says, and service industries work at their own pace. Raim has also had to deal with an unreliable electric service, which has often forced him to rely on backup batteries and generators to keep his business up and running.

* WAKE-UP CALL

Small towns may also lack a ready infrastructure or a steady pool of qualified workers, says Tom Mason, an economics professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, who has studied entrepreneurship for more than 15 years. "You might like living on the side of a mountain," Mason says, "but if your business starts growing and you need a couple of people to grow it with, where are [you going to find them]?"

For Elwood, Indiana, business owner Ed Escallon, the answer lies hours away. Many of his employees live in large cities, while Escallon's small manufacturing company, Terronics Development Corp., remains rooted on a farm in the town of 15,000.

"We were looking for a place outside the smokestacks," he says, referring to General Motors' dominance of Indiana's landscape and economy. Escallon, 53, left a job in industrial Muncie, Indiana, 13 years ago to build his 14-person company, which now reaps more than $1 million yearly.