Steve Booher
While growing up off Old Nashville Road in the late ‘70s and early ’80s, Steve Booher had a dream that he still maintains nearly a half-century later.
“I’ve always wanted to have my own business since I was 13,” Booher said. “My uncle was self-employed in California and lived in this big house. He always said that if you want to make big money, don’t work for somebody else.”
He said his uncle’s example was the only incentive he needed to become a millionaire by the time he was 32.
After creating and selling several companies to public trading companies, the now 59-year-old Booher admits he’s developing a product that may lead to the formation of another company.
Although he avoided giving details, Booher described it as a high-end consumer product.
“It is high-tech and I think there is a need,” he said with no further elaboration.
While attending Columbus North High School, Booher enjoyed his time on the gymnastics team. But he got a real taste of his future when he competed in mechanical drafting at the Indiana Skill Olympics.
After graduating from high school in 1982, Booher moved on to obtain a degree in design from Vincennes University. He would later earn a business degree from Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion.
His first businesses were the Auburn Clutch Co. CAD Design and Net Page USA.
Net Page USA, which he co-founded with an executive from Monster-dot-com, was an early internet firm created “when a lot of people made money and still failed,” Booher recalled. He only maintained his 80% ownership for about a year-and-a-half, he said.
“I didn’t make a lot of money, but I did learn a lot about branding and marketing from the Monster guy,” Booher recalled. “That was worth the effort alone.”
But as the business started to go cash negative, it was sold to a private company out of Boston. By avoiding what he feared might be a failure, Booher was able to maintain his reputation as a successful businessman.
In the summer of 1999, Booher founded Productive Resources, Inc., which specialized in providing outsource services in mechanical engineering, design architecture and prototype building.
His first office was off McKinley Avenue near the Cummins Tech Center. But Booher would eventually set up a center on U.S. 31 North by Kenny Glass and open offices in Indianapolis and St. Louis. At one time, his company was employing about 150 people, he said.
Although he eventually sold off his interests in Productive Resources, Inc., Booher managed to make quite a name for himself in the modern business world.
Two of his companies were among 80 Indiana companies the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Indiana University recognized in 2000. That same year, Booher was named Indiana’s Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, a global leader in assurance, consulting, strategy, transactions and tax services based in Great Britain.
Starting in 2007, Inc. Magazine recognized Productive Resources as one of the fastest growing companies in America for three separate years.
In recent years, Booher has been best known for owning the Indianapolis-based “Smart Apply, Inc.” The company developed what it called an intelligent spray control system that uses GPS technology for more precise applications of fertilizer and pesticides, reducing waste and saving costs for farmers.
Smart Apply uses technology developed for products made by his earlier companies, as well as a spray system developed for golf courses by the agricultural department of Ohio State University. But it still took much more development before it was ready to market. Those improvements led to the technology being used for orchards, vineyards and tree nursery spraying applications.
After established mutually beneficial relations for over three years, Deere & Company acquired the precision spraying equipment company on July 14. Nevertheless, Booher’s 32-year-old son, Cory, is still in charge of the Smart Apply dealers in California.
While his entrepreneurial skills have made him wealthy, Booher says heading a competitive, high-tech company is extremely challenging.
“To develop a technology, you have to take in high-level and expensive people,” Booher said. “The new product never takes off as quickly as you think it will, and will always cost a lot more than you think to develop.”
What sticks in the back of Booher’s mind is technology changes very quickly. That leaves him with a feeling that someone will come out out of nowhere with a better product than he has.
“You are always looking behind your back to see if there is someone coming up who can wipe you out,” Booher said.
It’s that uneasy concern that has given him the incentive to sell his companies over time, he said. It also gave him the incentive to hired a CEO to handle daily worries and raise business equity.
One question Booher hears from those in his hometown is how much he’s worth. It’s a question he’s willing to answer – in a non-direct manner.
“The last company I sold, we sold it at a multiple of ten times the bottom line,” Booher said with a light tone in his voice. “When you do new technology, you get a multiple of 10 times the top line. I like talking about a multiple of the top line a lot more than the bottom line.”
