Selling weight loss without effort.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: Money matters - Colorado Altitude Training

COLORADO ALTITUDE TRAINING BILLS itself as "the world leader in altitude simulation systems," which is a lofty title but leads you to wonder why anyone other than a Mount Everest climber would want to simulate life at high altitude where oxygen is scarce and breathing takes some getting used to.

Where's the market for that?

Endurance athletes, mainly. Lots of them. The military, too--preparing troops for high-altitude missions. But that may be just the beginning.

Boulder-based Colorado Altitude Training is now taking aim on the nation's 51 million obese people. That's why CEO Larry Kutt took 20 minutes to tell his company's story during the 15th annual Rockies Venture Club Colorado Capital Conference, before a room full of venture capitalists at the Marriott City Center in downtown Denver.

The eight presenting companies at the June 12 session included ManiaTV! Network, which seeks to become the world's first live Internet television network; Uzed.com, which provides consumers an easy and quicker way to sell their unwanted CDs, DVDs and games; and WellDog Inc., which claims to have developed the next generation of natural gas exploration technology. Everybody had a story, and rosy projections for future sales. But Colorado Altitude Training was the most intriguing--and the most in need of explaining itself to curious prospective investors.

As Kutt explained, Colorado Altitude Training makes high-altitude-simulated rooms as well as tents that fit over a bed. Since launching in 2000, the company has already sold its products to Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong, the Chicago Bears of the NFL, the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, Nike, the Olympic Training Center and the U.S. Special Forces. Last year the company had sales of $1.4 million for the simple reason that athletes, according to a study by the U.S. Olympic Committee cited by CAT, can improve their speed and endurance up to 5 percent by incorporating altitude as part of their training.

But Kutt spent most of his 20 minutes in front of the venture capitalists explaining CAT's place in the...