19 O.C. Firms Among Fastest Growing
Orange County continues to be fertile ground for rapidly growing companies, with 19 local firms appearing in Inc. magazine’s annual list of the nation’s 500 fastest-growing privately held companies.
Despite the county’s representation, no local firms appeared in the top 20, let alone achieved the blockbuster success of a Kingston Technology. Fountain Valley-based Kingston held the No. 1 spot in 1992.
The annual list is scheduled to be released today by Boston-based Inc.
The top-ranking local company was UniDirect Corp., an Irvine-based firm that sells computer networking operating systems and Internet software. UniDirect placed 22nd on the list, reflecting a 5,300% sales growth from 1991 to 1995.
“We’re really happy and the employees feel great about it,” said Berni Jubb, chief executive of UniDirect. “We have ‘No. 22’ plastered all over the office here.”
Most of the Orange County companies on the Inc. list are in the high-tech sector, a reflection of the incubative influence of UC Irvine as well as the long-standing presence of such high-tech powerhouses as AST Research Inc. and Western Digital Corp.
Many companies on the list have been there before. Simple Technology Inc. in Santa Ana, for instance, placed 50th, down from 13th overall a year earlier. Optical Laser Inc. of Huntington Beach was No. 205, down from the 40th spot a year earlier.
As companies grow it becomes harder for them to remain on the list simply because it is more difficult to match the four-digit growth rates reported by start-up companies.
UniDirect, for instance, was founded in 1991 by Jubb and partner Michael Silton with $40,000 in savings and a hunch that corporate customers would like to buy add-on programs that they previously had to design for themselves.
In the beginning, Jubb and Silton borrowed some empty floor space from a friend who had a software company in Laguna Hills. “We were in a corridor that led to the bathroom,” Jubb said.
Today, UniDirect has 75 employees. Sales soared from $390,000 in 1991 to more than $21 million last year, and Jubb said the company has already surpassed $30 million in 1996. The company’s customers include giant companies such as GTE and PageNet, as well as small firms such as dental offices, Jubb said.
About half of the company’s revenue these days comes through assuming the sales and marketing of other companies’ Internet software products under so-called outsourcing contracts, Jubb said.
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Next on the list was The Automatic Answer Inc., a San Juan Capistrano company founded eight years ago by three UC Irvine graduate students.
Automatic Answer develops call-processing software used by companies to handle voice mail, fax services and interactive voice messaging systems such as those used by banks to let customers check account balances.
David Woo, chief executive of the company, displayed a surprising degree of modesty in explaining the company’s success. “We got lucky,” he said.
Woo and fellow computer science students Tim Morgan and Siamak Emadi started the company with $80,000 in 1988 with the intention of simply being a dealer of call-processing software.
“What happened was the manufacturers weren’t responsive to our needs, so we decided we might as well write the software ourselves,” Woo said.
The three developed a product that combined the voice, fax and interactive components of call-processing software at a time when those were often treated as separate functions. By 1994, companies were clamoring for an integrated product.
“We were way ahead of the game,” Woo said, and the big corporate phone companies such as AT&T;, Panasonic and Toshiba were racing to catch up. Today, companies of that caliber license Automatic Answer’s software, accounting for 75% of the company’s sales. Woo declined to name which companies use Automatic Answer’s product.
Automatic Answer’s sales have grown 3,713% from $230,000 in 1991 to $8.77 million last year, and Woo said the 40-employee company, 39th on the Inc. list, will surpass $11 million this year.
“There’s no better feeling than knowing you’ve been able to grow something from nothing,” Woo said.
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Fast Track
Nineteen Orange County firms made Inc. magazine’s 1996 list of the nation’s 500 fastest-growing private companies. Ten are headquartered in Irvine. The list, by ranking:
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Sales Growth (% increase Rank Firm Headquarters 1991-1995) 22. UniDirect Irvine 5,300% 39. Automatic Answer San Juan Capistrano 3,713 50. Simple Technology Santa Ana 3,102 98. Cort Data Newport Beach 2,065 118. Vision Solutions Irvine 1,786 134. Nexgen SI Irvine 1,645 191. Continuus Software Irvine 1,270 205. Optical Laser Huntington Beach 1,197 206. Milcom International Irvine 1,186 266. First Source International Aliso Viejo 980 300. Viking Components Laguna Hills 894 307. Independent Capital Management Irvine 879 316. Secure Communication Systems Santa Ana 853 320. Advanced Business Machines Irvine 850 381. Creative Business Concepts Irvine 740 403. Upsilon Irvine 703 455. MicroMac Technology Aliso Viejo 630 495. Power Devices Laguna Hills 591 499. Lantronix Irvine 584
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Source: Inc. magazine
