Latham drafted and redrafted a business plan and managed to raise an initial $70,000 from family, angel investors, and friends. In the beginning, she labored long hours in her home's basement using a kitchen blender, cookie sheets, and mixing bowls to try to turn polymer-based compounds into something commercial. Soon she found bargain-priced work space at a factory and moved into a studio apartment. She rented out her house and lived on the proceeds from that, along with some part-time consulting income.
Looking back, Latham recalls being anxious at first because BP might claim that her business was based on an idea she had developed while she was employed there -- and try to stop her. "A lawsuit would have destroyed me," she says.
But if BP was aware of Latham's venture, the company never bothered her. (Pesa says BP was selective about protecting ideas that weren't considered big moneymakers.) By 1992, Latham had samples of an actual product -- superthin polymer sheets cut to fit between computer components. "Basically, they sold themselves," says Latham, whose initial customers included IBM and Silicon Graphics. In its first three years, Thermagon raised only $100,000 in capital. After those early sales, says Latham, new investors fought to get in.
Today the 62-year-old Latham oversees 120 employees and 12 products and boasts 1,300 customers, who are concentrated in chip-making meccas like Silicon Valley and Taiwan. Sarosh Patel, an advanced-development manager with Teradyne Inc., a maker of semiconductor test equipment, says Latham's company quickly developed a solid reputation in the industry. "We started with one Thermagon product," he says. "Now we use three."
At this point, Latham has reason to be grateful that BP passed on her idea. Thermagon, which had revenues of nearly $19 million in 2000, has made the Inc 500 list for three years straight. Two years ago Latham was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. Those things wouldn't have happened if she had remained a bright employee whose good idea was turned into a reality by someone else.
The Automater
Al Wasserberger is the first to admit it. Back in early 1996, when he pitched a whole new way of doing business to his former boss, he looked pretty scruffy. "Yeah, I had the ponytail and the beard," he says. "I was a tech."
Wasserberger's Jerry Garcia look probably wasn't wholly to blame for his plan's rejection. His former employer, Universal Networks Inc., in Elmhurst, Ill., was a typical systems integrator, with a revenue model built on consultants' racking up billable hours loading software and configuring routers and switchers at client sites. Wasserberger had devised a program to automate much of that work. Instead of traveling to client sites, consultants could install and upgrade software on dozens of remote desktops without ever leaving Universal's offices. "I knew you could do it faster, with higher-quality, higher-consistency work if you used automation," says Wasserberger. He proposed charging clients on a flat-fee, per-project basis, which, he contends, would have increased employee efficiency and overall revenues. "I was asking for permission to develop this in detail," he says.
But Universal's president wasn't interested in shaking things up. "He told me, 'Al, I don't need you to tell me how to run the business. Go be a good engineer," says Wasserberger. He ignored that advice and promptly quit to launch his own company, Spirian Technologies Inc. (#62), which offers automated flat-fee IT services.
Wasserberger's former boss, who left Universal after the company was acquired by IKON Office Solutions, could not be located for comment. But Joe Taylor, Universal's former vice-president of sales, recalls that he, too, never had much luck pitching new ideas.
Universal is history: in 1997 IKON sold off the company's remaining assets. Meanwhile, Spirian, which Wasserberger started with just $5,000 and a Best Buy credit card, is flourishing. In the company's first five years, revenues have shot up from $247,000 to $8.1 million -- an increase of 3,177%. Wasserberger now has 70 employees, including half a dozen from Universal, and a client roster that includes Cisco, Lotus, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also has a deep-pocketed strategic partner: systems-integrating giant EDS Corp., which this year bought an 8.5% stake in Spirian. In fact, the only thing Wasserberger has less of is hair. In keeping with his new CEO status, Spirian's founder cut off the ponytail and shaved the beard.
The Commercializer
Ask Robert Schmidt why he left his last job and he doesn't mutter vaguely about conflicting strategic visions. "I got fired," he says.
It was probably inevitable. In 1990, Schmidt was director of technology for Life Systems Inc., a research firm headquartered in Cleveland. Rick Wynveen, the company's president, had built a thriving business in space and military research projects for NASA and the Pentagon. Schmidt, who has an M.B.A., a law degree, a master's in urban environmental studies, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering, couldn't contain his entrepreneurial zeal. He believed that some of the company's work -- such as a device to test hospital catheters -- could be easily spun off into profitable side businesses. He even laid out cost projections.
