Distinguished Alumni : Seton Claggett

Seton Claggett on the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program: “When you enter the entrepreneurship program, you want a piece of the pie. When you leave the program, you want to make the pie.”

Up to Speed

“Welcome to TriSports.com—the online triathlon superstore, created for triathletes, by triathletes.” That’s TriSports.com in a nutshell. The company Seton Claggett (’98) started four years ago in his home (with, he says, “a little cash and a lot of credit cards”) now boasts a 6,000-square-foot warehouse, a retail storefront, and a 112-page catalog.

In case you’re wondering, a triathlon is an athletic event whose participants compete in three sports—usually swimming, bicycling, and running—one right after the other. Claggett is an accomplished triathlete, and the business was born of his own difficulty finding “tri-specific” products.

For TriSports.com’s first two years, Claggett often worked until midnight seven days a week and never collected a paycheck. The schedule was especially grueling because he was working on a master’s degree in hydrology, awarded in 2001.

Now Claggett’s wife is on the payroll too, and he has plans to expand his market by “getting physically out around the country and meeting the customers”—most likely at athletic competitions.

Based in Tucson, Claggett has been a guest lecturer in the McGuire program, and he values his continuing connection with the Karl Eller Center—“a valuable resource”—as well as the “real-world” education he received there. “You learn so much [in the program] that is truly applicable,” he says.

  
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