Radio show is its own startup story.

Rob McNealy is a former tech programmer and project manager who went back to school for an MBA after being laid off three times in 12 months at the turn of the millennium.

Yet even when he was a working stiff in corporate America, McNealy moonlighted as an entrepreneur. As far back as 1996 he mined the Internet space with a Web consultancy and an online auction site--two failures the 35-year-old father of three is not reluctant to talk about.

That candidness has proved a valuable trait in McNealy's latest venture, "Startup Story Radio," which he hosts every Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. on KKZN AM 760.

Since launching the show back in July, McNealy has found that lining up guests is a lot easier than lining up advertisers. Guests have included "eMyth" author Michael Gerber, former A1 Gore speech writer and "Free Agent Nation" author Dan Pink, venture capitalist Brad Feld, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Hawaiian Tropic founder Ron Rice and a steady stream of area entrepreneurs.

The show evolved from one of McNealy's business successes, Natural Wood Floors LLC, which he launched three years ago to fund yet another startup, a night-vision-system company for yachts.

"I pulled the plug on it about two years ago," McNealy says of the marine-electronics company. "But the flooring business took off."

McNealy started out advertising his flooring business on Tom Martino's "Troubleshooter" radio show on KHOW 630 and landed the job of finishing Martino's hardwood flooring on a house expansion. He became enamored with radio after he saw Martino's home studio, and he approached radio conglomerate Clear Channel with the idea of launching a show dedicated to budding entrepreneurs.

"They said, 'Sure, we'll take your money,'" McNealy says.

He started out at KHOW but quickly decided the $1,200 per hour rate was too much, so he moved to Clear Channel's KKZN in favor of its $600 to $800 hourly rate.

"At this point, I'm shelling out about three grand a month to run the show," he says. "I run my flooring-business ads during my show, so I can justify the write-off." But he adds, "I would rather spend my time running around trying to get good guests rather than spending my time running around trying to get sponsors."

McNealy says the liberal slant of KKZN has helped put him in touch with the Boulder entrepreneurial community, which he says is distinctly different from Denver's.

"The different cities around the Front Range don't talk to each other," he says. "It's like there's five different entrepreneurial communities that don't talk. I'm trying to work toward the goal of making them talk."

In fact, McNealy says he and a partner are putting together a private-equity company called Low Tech Partners, inspired by feedback from listeners and the fact that he thinks the low-tech space is full of promise but has been overlooked.

"I do have a technical background, but I think there are more opportunities in this (low-tech) space," he says.

"You go to any of these angel pitch events, and it's almost always software or Internet," McNealy says. "We're finding that a lot of investors, baby boomers with a lot of money, don't understand the space so they won't invest in technology they don't understand."

Meanwhile back in the radio studio, McNealy has added "social media expert" Dave Taylor as a co-host, and they're developing a regular audience, not only on the radio airwaves but on podcasts at www.startupstory.com. McNealy says he's averaging 1,000 to 2,000 podcast downloads per month.

"The first couple shows--I would say the first eight shows--weren't all that good from a style perspective," McNealy says. "'We're nine months into it now, and I think we have a pretty good sound and a pretty interesting show. Even if I don't make money from it, I want a radio show that's interesting to listen to.

"I haven't had any complaints from people saying, 'You suck, get off the radio.'"

Mike Taylor is the managing editor of ColoradoBiz. He writes about small-business money issues and how startups are launched. Read this and Taylor's past columns on the Web at cobizmag.com and e-mail him at [e-mail].

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]