God’s Niche
In 2004, Luis Olarte had an MBA from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and he was looking for a niche industry in which to launch a manufacturing business. “I always wanted to start a company and sell something you could touch, feel, and customize to customer needs,“ he says. “The fixed-wing market is big, but too established and defined for new start-ups. I wanted to start a business, and in the end it came down to helicopters being an underserved niche. It was a natural niche for us to enter as the value company that sells regulatory compliant helicopter sims for a lower, good price.” Then Olarte underscores the niche nature of rotorcraft with this memorable quip in his rich, Spanish accent, “Helicopters fly only by the grace of God, and God Himself doesn’t know how helicopters fly; helicopters are miraculous!”
Potatoes
In addition to his diploma and dream, Olarte also had a job selling warehouse equipment for Kardex. But his biggest sales job happened when he returned to his native Spain and convinced his brother Pedro, an engineer who designed flight simulators for fixed-wing aircraft, to leave his secure salary — on which he and his family depended — and move into a 40-square-meter garage to write code for helicopter flight sims for a stake in his brother’s dream company that had no customers and little capital, except for Luis’ savings account of 30,000 euros. Entrol was birthed on a vision and a business plan. “I guess I was a good salesman and that Pedro really loved me,” Olarte says. Pedro and family lived on an hourly wage of 19.95 euros and Luis lived on...potatoes. “I went without a salary for 15 months and lived off of eating potatoes,” the then-bachelor recalls. (Today, he enjoys tastier ice-cream treats with his young sons.)
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