ENTREPRENEUR PRESSES ON : DESPITE REPEATED REJECTION, MAN CONTINUES TO PUSH FERTILITY AID.

Byline: Amy Gage St. Paul Pioneer Press 

Like many people who have been caught in the churn of American business, Hugh Ferguson has a dream. He wants to run his own company.

Unlike many of the dreamers, he has a detailed plan for getting there.

The catch for Ferguson - a mild-mannered electrical engineer who has developed a product to help infertile women get pregnant - is whether he can stand the rejection along the way.

In the 11 months since he incorporated MediCord, the company he runs from his home in Coon Rapids, Minn., Ferguson has sent his 87-page business plan to nearly 100 potential investors. Most returned the plan with no comment. ``If you get a 15 percent hit rate, you've done extremely well,'' he said.

The saga of one man's 13-year quest to bring a product to market speaks volumes about persistence, passion and drive. It's also a lesson in how to manage the tumultuous emotions that come with the riskiest of all business endeavors - entrepreneurship.

Insecurity runs rampant among corporate employees these days. But at least they have each other. Ferguson has fought his battles alone. Time and again, he has had to swallow his pride, to learn not to take rejection personally.

He brought on a partner after one executive told him he lacked the personality and background to win over investors. He's tinkered with the business plan since a venture capitalist misinterpreted MediCord as a one-product company, which has never been the intention.

Ferguson, 40, will take a job if he has to, but he refuses to focus on whether MediCord will fail. ``You have to have staying power,'' he said. ``You put the negative comments behind you. You think, `Well, they missed the opportunity to invest. They'll be sorry later.' That might be wishful thinking, I don't know. But it's my way.''

He must raise $400,000 for salaries, product prototypes for doctors and research costs for other health care products that will help people monitor their blood sugar or blood pressure at home. A second mortgage on his house wouldn't raise enough capital. He's already tapped $7,000 of his retirement funds.

``I think it just comes down to a belief,'' said Ferguson's wife, Patricia, who struggled with infertility herself years ago and whose salary as a supervisor at Kelly Services has been the family's sole income since November.

``It's the creation that really keeps us going,'' she said.

A pipe dream? Ferguson can't allow himself to think so. Every time the phone rings, he tells himself, ``That's the one.'' Maybe it's an investor willing to write the first check or a physician agreeing to let patients test the Ovu-Cord monitor, an automated box that records women's basal body temperature every morning so doctors can diagnose and treat infertility.

Lately, he has gotten a morale boost from his new business partner, Linda Gode, a former Prudential executive whose background in administration, health care and fund raising will complement his technical skills, he believes.

Ferguson describes his market with a fervor more common to entrepreneurs than engineers. He knows that 5.3 million women in the United States - 9 percent of all women in their reproductive years - can't get pregnant when they want to. Those numbers likely will grow as women continue to delay childbearing.

He knows from first-hand experience that the manual method of charting basal body temperature, which tells women when ovulation will occur, is imprecise, impractical and often frustrating. Doctors have told him Ovu-Cord would remove the guesswork from the process.

But gender is complicating his effort to raise money. Ferguson is trying to market a female-oriented product, yet he knows of no female investors with the bucks to back it. Many male venture capitalists haven't seen the need for his device.

His conclusion: ``We need more women business angels.''

Women have told Ferguson they'd buy Ovu-Cord for the $200 he plans to charge, even if their health insurance wouldn't cover it. But he's watched men's eyes glaze over during fund-raising presentations.

Through it all, step by step, he has continued to build his company, which he aims to take public within five years, when he projects revenues will hit $30 million.

``Initially, I think we were pretty naive,'' said Patricia Ferguson, whose yearlong bout with infertility sparked Hugh's idea. ``We thought people would look at this and basically be handing over checks.''

Investment bankers rarely back such an untested product. So Ferguson is seeking seed money from venture capitalists, who trade their financial risk for a sizable stake in young firms and later look for an exit through an initial public offering or acquisition.

``If I had my own $400,000, I wouldn't go this route,'' he said. ``It certainly crosses your mind that you're giving up control.''

A longtime breadwinner for his wife and two children, Ferguson has had to muster the courage and confidence that the brave new work world requires. Last March, he was fired from his product director job at Aetrium Inc. after his mentor left in a management shake-up. Just two weeks later, his wife was downsized from Prudential.

He quit graduate school for lack of money, and they both gave up their dream of building a fancy new home - near his former company.

After free-lancing for several months, and working on MediCord nights and weekends, Ferguson decided to give the start-up his best shot. He's set up meetings with successful entrepreneurs, saying, ``I'm not looking for money but advice.'' When investors tell him no, he politely asks them why.

``You have to turn it around,'' he said. ``If you get turned down, you ask, `Why not?' It's never crossed my mind to give up and say it's done.''

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Photo

Photo: Linda Gode holds Ovu-Cord, a device to gauge a woman's fertility developed by Hugh Ferguson, right.

Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service