Jeff and Rich Sloan developed their appetite for entrepreneurship as kids at the dinner table. Every Monday, their mother would read them fascinating details of inventions in The New York Times patent section. She often told them they should try to get a patent someday, and they took on the challenge.

"We were on a mission," Rich says.

Several years later, after collaborating on ventures that included buying and selling HUD homes, starting up and selling an Arabian horse-breeding operation, and creating and selling a consumer products import company, they succeeded. The brothers, who graduated with degrees in English (Jeff) and Asian history (Rich) from the University of Michigan, developed and in 1990 successfully licensed the Battery Buddy, which prevents car batteries from dying.

That creation drew the attention of inventors from all over the country, who started seeking their advice. Over the next five years, Jeff, now 45, and Rich, 38, helped license products and then expanded to help more than a dozen technology companies write business plans and attain financing. Together, with other angel investors, they provided more than $70 million in financing for entrepreneurial ventures.

The Sloans decided in 2002 to combine their knowledge and desire to share their business wisdom at StartupNation.com, described by Rich Sloan as a "candy store" with free entrepreneurial advice through online articles, blogs, e-newsletters, seminars, events, podcasts, a nationally syndicated radio program and their book, StartupNation: Open for Business.

Although intrigued as a kid by the idea of inventing a product, Rich says he had no desire to be in the business world. His idea of corporate America was far from the way he imagined spending his life. "No way I'm going to subject myself to that cube-farm environment," he remembers thinking. "No way I'm going to punch in and punch out of life every day." But then he realized he had a false perception of the business world.

"I learned that entrepreneurship is extremely creative; it's as much about paying attention to the numbers as it is about being innovative-creating, breaking through, being progressive," he says.

It also helped that Rich saw a passion in his brother, Jeff. "He's a relentless natural entrepreneur," says Rich. "Over the course of his life he hasn't put a difference between what if and what is."

The brothers believe that partnerships-whether between friends or family-are positive, especially for beginning entrepreneurs. "There are many times as an entrepreneur that you can't find an answer or you are just absolutely fatigued or perhaps downtrodden," says Rich. "That partner plays a key role in picking up the flag from your hand and taking it the rest of the way."

To make a partnership work, it's critical to establish roles, develop respect, maintain great communication and create an alignment of interests so that a win for one person is a win for the other, Rich says. In times of disagreement, those factors can be critical in determining the right move to make.

That's helped the brothers-who sit with their desks facing each other only 17 feet apart at their office in Birmingham, Mich.-ride the bumps along the road. When developing the Battery Buddy, they underestimated how much time and money it would take before reaping the success. "We thought we could commercialize that invention and make a quatrillion dollars in a really rapid and easy way, and of course that wasn't the case," Rich says. "We weren't prepared for years of peanut butter and jelly and years of psychological trauma."

They have had occasional failures. At one point in their entrepreneurial career, they were approached by a large manufactured-home developer who wanted them to create a solution to cinder block foundations. They developed a new system that used mini-pilings instead, although at a higher price. Sloan says they failed to realize that the system took out the middleman, the traditional installer of the manufactured home, which created pricing resistance. There essentially was a revolt among the people who would have to install the home, he says. They eventually abandoned the idea because price sensitivity made it too tough of a sale.

They learned that in building a business, it's important to do as much research as possible to validate the concept. That includes getting as many distinct data points as possible to be confident that you understand the market and are sure that buyers would not only find the solution interesting but would be willing to pay for it. "We were guilty of not doing good enough research across the various players in the chain," Rich says.

The biggest stumble they see entrepreneurs make is buying into their own hype. When people pitch business plans, Rich says they're often blown away by the initiative, but can quickly see that the assumptions about a market, service or product are inaccurate and unachievable.