When a friend in Joliet called Jennifer Cullen of Laurel for help in finding hay for her horses, Cullen got the idea to start her first business.

It was early spring in 2007 and hay was scarce in the Billings area. After helping her friend track down some hay, Cullen decided to create a service directory for Montana horse owners.

Florida, where Cullen managed a horse barn, has a handful of directories focusing solely on the horse industry. Most other states have at least one book. But Montana has none, forcing shoppers to look through local phone books or piece together contacts through an Internet search.
"This is ridiculous. You shouldn't have to go to these lengths to find hay," Cullen said. "So I said, 'OK, that's it, I'm doing it.' " The Butte native, who now lives in Billings and runs an office in Laurel, is combining her lifelong equestrian experience with her Yellow Pages sales career.

In October, Cullen will start distributing 20,000 copies of the Montana Horse Directory that she has spent the last year designing and selling ads for. The book will contain listings of all the horse businesses in Montana, whether they buy an ad or not, plus calendars of horse events and maps. The cutoff to buy ads for the first book is Aug. 15. The directory will be free to users.

The Montana horse world is a multimillion-dollar sleeper industry, but outsiders generally don't realize its economic impact, she said.

"I'm sure if you threw a rock, you'd probably hit someone who has something to do with horses," Cullen said.

Across Montana, there are as many as 1,000 horse-related businesses, from feed stores to tack shops, she said. When the Montana book is out, Cullen will publish directories for neighboring states.

Every two months, Cullen plans on distributing a directory until her company is serving Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Utah. Horse Directory Inc. plans on contracting with a publisher to print 20,000 books for each state or 120,000 books a year.

When cash grew tight, Cullen turned to an upstart microloan program kicked off by Gianforte Family Charitable Trust of Bozeman. Greg Gianforte founded five companies before starting RightNow Technologies, which specializes in improving Internet services and is one of Bozeman's top employers.

Last year, he started the Bootstrap Montana Loan Program, which is fashioned after microloans in India designed to help the poor improve their financial situation. The Bootstrap board awards $2,000 to $20,000 yearlong loans to Montana businesses to take them to the next stage of development. No interest is charged if the loan is paid back on time, and the application process for the unsecured loan is minimal.

Cullen declined to disclose the amount of her loan, but Bootstrap Montana has made six loans so far, lending out $49,000 from its $90,000 fund.

To apply, a company must have at least half its sales coming from outside Montana. With each new dollar turning over an estimated five to six times at other businesses, outside sales help bring new capital to the state. And companies located in the rural areas of Montana get preference.

"Montana has a huge opportunity in front of it," Gianforte said. "The Internet means you can have a store that's on Main Street of the world, not just Main Street Montana."

According to Gianforte, when an entrepreneur gets an idea for a business and tries to raise investment money, the way to pay the investors back is build the business up to $50 million or more, or go public and sell stock. Only 1 percent of U.S. businesses ever attain this goal, he said. The other method is to sell out to a larger company, which entrepreneurs usually don't want to do.

The Bootstrap loans fill a void between traditional financing, he said.

Gianforte, who was named software Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003 for the Pacific Northwest region by an accounting firm, has also co-authored a book called "Bootstrapping Your Business." As a financing maverick, he insists that most startup businesses can avoid the trap of raising much capital, and the book lays out his method.

"It's a myth you need money to start a business," he said.

Gianforte has been invited to speak at prestigious institutions like the Harvard University business school to what he called mixed reactions.

"It's not at all what is taught there. So the students love it, but the professor never invites you back," he said, with a laugh.

So far, Bootstrap loans have gone to Sunrise Pack Station, a horse packing business; Kim Loftus Tile; MicroPhone Pro, which sells professional audio equipment; Montana Stones; Foundant Technologies in Bozeman, which is streamlining the cumbersome process of making and tracking grants; and Cullen's Horse Directory.

As a 13-year-old, Cullen worked a hodgepodge of jobs to buy her first horse. Then she convinced her mother to home school her so she would have time to study, work and ride. At 16, she groomed racehorses in Spokane and then worked backside at the track in Billings.

For market research, Cullen said she talked to about 1,000 horse lovers and asked them if they'd use an equine directory.

"We didn't have one person this past year say they wouldn't use this publication," she said. "They all said, 'I can't believe I've lived this long without one.' "

The state also lacks a Montana Horse Council, a branch of the national American Horse Council. So, Cullen started a chapter of the nonprofit organization, which held its first meeting in June.

Five years of experience in selling Yellow Page ads is indispensable to her business plan, she said, but she needs more help. So, she used the Bootstrap loan to hire two sales representatives. Once people can hold and use the book, sales should really pick up and help her turn a profit the first year, she said.

"I knew I wanted my life to revolve around horses," she said. "I've always been that passionate about them."