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If an ultra-upbeat CEO were enough to turn a tiny tech company into a
giant, Toronto-based cStar Technologies Inc. would be the new Canadian
Amazon.com. Sure, (Solbyung) Stella Yoon has an executive MBA (from the
Joseph Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto) and has
experience heading up two high-tech companies, but she's no
buttoned-down CEO. Want evidence? Her business bible is the children's
classic The Little Prince; the company's vision statement asks, "Are we
happy today?"; her official titles include Cheerleader and CEEO-for
Cheerfully Encouraging and Executing Optimist. "People will laugh at me,
but that's OK," says Yoon, 38, through a fresh coat of purple lipstick.
Of course, perkiness alone does not a great company make. So it's a good
thing cStar's 20 employees and its somewhat wacky founder have a pretty
hot technology, too. Yoon, who emigrated from South Korea to Canada in
1992, says cStar is leading "Internet Wave III" by linking non-tech
devices to the Net via wireless WANs, LANs, phone lines and even power
outlets. "It's great, because the non-IT world is much bigger than the
IT world, and it's an untapped market," she says. "Anything you can plug
in can be connected."
The enormous vending machine market'-here are 5.2 million candy- and
soda-dispensing machines in the US alone-was a perfect testing ground
for cStar's flagship products, DirectGate and SkyGate. CStar's patented
tech allows vending machine operators to network hundreds of units in
the same building to one wireless device. Since the device relays data
on sales, inventory, temperature and coin jams to HQ, fewer trucks and
service personnel need to be dispatched. "They can prepare everything at
the warehouse and plan their routes beforehand," says Yoon. Other uses
include monitoring oil, gas or water pipes. When Long Island, NY-based
software giant Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) met with
Yoon, it was convinced as much by the promising technology as by Yoon's
go-get-'em attitude. "'Unique' is the word I would use to describe
Stella," says John Pincomb, CA's vice-president of real-world
management. "She's terrific." And so, he says, is the technology's
ability to transmit data through power outlets-which networking firms
plan to offer in a year.
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"We
didn't find anybody else who had that," says
Pincomb. "Any place you need connectivity
between devices, then cStar's technology is
going to be terrific," he says. Under a deal
signed last February, cStar will package its
product with CA software that manages vending
machines.
Yoon
now hopes to sell a major US vending machine
operator on the tech as early as this month. She
clearly needs a deal: cStar pulled in less than
$1 million in fiscal 2000. But Yoon, ever the
optimist, says that in the next 16 months,
revenue will be $15 million and will increase by
400% annually. That's a tall order. "We don't
believe we'll make billions of dollars in
vending," she says. "But I feel that tomorrow
there will be great things. I just want to make
sure today is happy." And there's something
about Stella Yoon that makes you think she just
might pull it off.
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