Power Play
What are you waiting for? There's never been a better time to start a high-tech business.
When 25-year-old Brad Wardell began developing software for an
OS/2 computer game in 1993, nobody had ever sold any games for this
operating system. At the time, software developers just didn't
see any real market for them. But Wardell had an idea: a new
space-based strategy game called Galactic Civilizations. He'd
been hanging out in Internet newsgroups discussing his concept with
fellow OS/2 users, and many couldn't wait to try their hands at
it. So War-dell, convinced that OS/2 was becoming a mainstream
operating system, began developing the game in hopes the market
would expand.
Turns out, he was right: Today, 8 percent of the world's PCs
run on IBM's OS/2 platform. What's more, Wardell's
Canton, Michigan-based company, Stardock Systems Inc., expects
sales of $3.5 million this year and has a strong foothold in the
OS/2 software market.
Was Wardell's venture a lucky guess? Perhaps. Yet, in many
ways, it's not really surprising so many small technology-based
companies like Wardell's are finding seemingly sudden success.
On the contrary, myriad marketplace indicators point to the fact
that all systems are go for today's start-up technology
companies. An alignment of the entrepreneurial planets, if you
will, is making the climate riper than ever for starting or growing
a high-tech business.
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"There has never been a better time to start a
technology-based business," says Mark Rice, assistant dean of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's (RPI) Lally School of
Management and Technology and director of RPI's
entrepreneurship center in Troy, New York. "All the necessary
ingredients are becoming more abundant, and the opportunities to
pursue [such a business] are becoming more plentiful."
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