Moving from the cloud to the ground, Spokane-area entrepreneur and former technology executive Jeff Aden has purchased Nine Mile Feed & Hardware and is giving it a modern makeover.

Located at 12516 N. Nine Mile Road, in Nine Mile Falls, the 44-year-old, 3,800-square-foot-building and one-acre parcel previously had been owned by Rick Rodney for 34 years.

 Aden declines to disclose the purchase amount, but said it was an unexpected transaction for both buyer and seller.

“(Rodney) was a small business owner, and he did a great job for the community. He’s 75, and he was a little worried about the tariffs,” Aden says. “He wasn’t really selling. I just walked in and asked, ‘do you want to sell it?’ We came up with a fair price and now I own it.”

Aden assumed ownership on April 30 and has already restocked the greenhouse twice, he says. 

"We've already had over 1,000 customers come through," says Aden.

Nine Mile Feed & Hardware has seven employees, including Aden, and will continue to operate under the same name.

Aden plans on bringing in Matt Collins from the architecture firm Uptic Studio to design some minor changes.

“We are freshening up and enhancing what is already there,” Aden says. “We are partnering with Uptic to look at different options to enhance and provide more of an offering to the community.”

Aden says he plans on making minor changes to the current inventory, including the removal of outdated supplies. He also plans on adding feed delivery, a rental service for machinery, and a tool exchange club. 

“We still plan on doing hardware, just not the hardware that nobody is buying,” he says.

Aden says he can order items for customers that aren’t available in the store, especially electrical and commercial products that they will no longer stock.

A rental service modeled after a wine-of-the-month club, where customers pay a monthly fee to rent tools like drills and saws on a regular basis, will also be added.

On top of the feed and hardware, Aden plans on offering feed delivery service and rental equipment, including skid steers and excavators. Small garden equipment, such as cultivators and augers will also be available to rent.

Once his liquor license is approved, Aden will bring in local wines and beers. He’s currently stocking local tea from Revival Tea and will add chocolate once refrigeration is installed, he says.

The greenhouse is stocked with large plants, flowers, herbs, and landscaping plants sourced locally from a plant farm and Oregon.

Aden says his employees travel out to the plant farms and select the inventory.

Aden is also pondering bringing in some educational, lunch-and-learn workshops to share his experience with artificial intelligence.

“What I was able to do with AI was pretty fun,” Aden says. “Having the tech background and being able to set inventory, to look at demographic information without pouring over files and websites and be able to check the information and run scenarios of what type of product I should bring in based on margin profiles. By the time I got done, I felt like I had a team of business analysts.”

The use of AI helped Aden save $20,000 to $30,000 in costs typically spent on accountants and lawyers, he says.

He also used his knowledge with AI to update the inventory system, he says.

Aden, who co-founded 2nd Watch Inc., a Liberty Lake-based cloud computing company and provider of Amazon Web Services in 2010, says he always wanted to run a hardware company.

“I’m like a little kid,” he says. “I love building and creating and that’s what we are doing here … and it’s only two miles from my house.”

Growing up in the area, Aden says he visited the hardware store often. 

“I used to come down here when I was 12, 13 years old,” he says. “I would always know that, if I walk in there, everything’s going to be in the same spot. And the store still looks the same.”

Aden and his former business partner, Kris Bliesner, sold 51% of 2nd Watch Inc. to Singapore-based ST Telemedia in 2019. Aden still owns investor shares in the company, which is now called Ollion Inc.

Prior to 2nd Watch, Aden spent time in Asia, worked in the mortgage industry, and was an executive at Ambassadors Group, a Spokane-based educational travel company. He is an alumnus of Whitworth University. Up until last year, Aden worked as a business consultant.

Small Bites

*Jam Pod, a music rehearsal studio equipped for recording and performing, is opening at 2012 E. Sprague on June 1. The studio provides rehearsal studio rentals and live band rooms. 

*Irvine, California-based Habit Burger & Grill has submitted its second application with the city of Spokane to build a restaurant at 7404 N. Division.

As previously reported in the journal, the franchise submitted a predevelopment conference application in December for a location on the West Plains, at 9558 W. U.S. 2, across the highway front the former Triumph Composite Systems Inc. building, at 1514 S. Flint.