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Back from the Brink

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/ C0 v: U: ~$ x5 M$ {* RAs told to Darren Dahl
Monday, January 8, 2007

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  H7 X+ X# p4 ^1 A' a0 H+ h0 FGeomagic Inc. Co-founder and CEO, Ping Fu
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www.geomagic.com[/COLOR]
[EMAIL=\"inquiry@geomagic.com\"]inquiry@geomagic.com[/COLOR][/EMAIL]
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Business Type:Software
9 _$ Y' V5 D* f& b9 V8 |# _/ m2005 Revenue:$15 million
: J: D3 I  Y& KNo. of Employees:100

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Ping Fu\'s journey as [I]Inc.[/I] magazine\'s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year[/COLOR] began 25 years ago, with her escape from communist China. After stops in New Mexico and California, she headed to Illinois, where she worked with Marc Andreessen on the creation of an early Internet browser called Mosaic. Inspired by the mid-1990s technology boom, she set out to start her own company. In 1999, she arrived in Raleigh, N.C., and began to grow that company, Geomagic, which makes software that\'s revolutionizing the manufacturing industry through its three-dimensional design tools.    \"I was a reluctant entrepreneur in the beginning. I was working at the University of Illinois managing the Mosaic project. Then Netscape went public in 1995 and that changed everything. After that, everyone I knew in high-tech was starting companies. That\'s when I thought I might as well start one as well.  
\"The difference for me was that I didn\'t want to start an Internet company like everyone else. My husband, Herbert, and I had been using a supercomputer to digitize shapes. We were modeling small things like atoms and enormous things like galaxies. What intrigued me was that we were in the middle of the digital revolution where everything from music to desktop processing was going digital. I wondered how we could do the same thing to manufacturing. The idea of making digital designs as easy as taking a photo excited me.
. i, z: _) B4 @4 q, L0 e\"Then, in 1997, I went out and raised some money like any other entrepreneur. Money was easy if you had a good story. Our story was better than good. I told people to imagine walking into a Nike store to get your foot scanned to make your customized hiking boots, or watching a model of your daughter\'s teeth and how they will change the next two years. The applications could be endless.
\"We quickly raised $2 million and landed our first two customers, Mattel and Boeing. We picked them carefully as partners because they offered the chance to test our software on a large variety of shapes, everything from Barbie dolls to jet turbines.
9 D3 H& `% |2 d6 _3 B\"We delivered our first product two years later and raised some more venture-capital money. Then I made my first mistake. I used the money we raised to hire seasoned managers to run the company. I was just following what every other high-flying company was doing. I didn\'t understand that managers from companies like IBM, GE, or Pratt & Whitney didn\'t understand how to run a start-up company. I thought people could make miracles, and they couldn\'t. Our company, like many others, took a downturn because we chased the wrong customers and lost money.
" d% q: J; a4 G+ G0 U\"The company was at the brink of death and I needed to make something of our hard work. I went to our VCs and asked them to let me take the company back and run it. I told them I was their best bet. To their credit, they let me.
\"I took the company back in 2001. I had $1 million in the bank and 15 employees and I had to lay half of them off. I had to mortgage my house to help pay for the ones that stayed. We adopted a mantra -- DROOM -- which meant Do Not Run Out of Money. This was a far harder time that when we were a start-up. The key was that we believed in our technology. Our mission was to deploy three-dimensional technology for the benefit of humanity.
0 k% T) @# L) g2 x1 q+ y\"Our turning point was a key $2 million contract from a customer. That gave us cash for another nine months. Then a couple more deals followed. Our customers were telling us that they believed in our technology and they didn\'t want to see us die. I also started hiring the right kind of people this time, people that shared our entrepreneurial values. They helped me make the company profitable again in 2003. It was a miracle.\"