Dissolving a Business Partnership

Tobias Hemmerling
Founder and CEO
Montjoux LLC

Some would say that Tobias Hemmerling and Burke Blackman's business partnership was doomed from the beginning.

And, if bets had been taken, those who predicted that they wouldn't be in business together a year after graduating would be right — but for the wrong reasons.

Hemmerling and Blackman became friends while earning their MBAs at the University of Colorado at Boulder. They shared a love of the outdoors and an entrepreneurial spirit, and they decided to start a helicopter-skiing company after graduation. Together, during a business-plan course, they mapped out their strategy.

"Almost all of our professors thought we were crazy," says Hemmerling. "Everyone said the ski industry is fun, but nobody could make money at it."

But Hemmerling and Blackman were determined — more determined than most. After researching the viability of such a business in Aspen, CO, and finding out that local government and environmental agencies would not allow it, the pair rewrote their business plan and substituted snowcats for helicopters and Vail for Aspen.