High-tech eyes.
San Francisco Business Times, 02/11/2000
Ginsberg, Steve
HIGH-TECH EYES
AccessAbility Inc. transcends physical and professional barriers
Scott Duncan is legally blind. That hasn't stopped him from clearly
seeing a business opportunity.
Duncan, 33, has overcome a defective retina to succeed in a
competitive world that isn't always accommodating. Like 20 million
other visually impaired Americans, he needs adaptive technology to use
a computer.
That led Duncan to launch AccessAbility, a San Francisco company that
customizes computers for use by the blind, visually impaired and those
with other disabilities.
Duncan and a former business colleague at Mountain View's TeleSensory,
Steve Clark, founded AccessAbility in 1997. Half his 20 employees are
also either blind or suffer serious visual impairments. That's created
challenges, of course, but it's also a benefit: AccessAbility's work
force can relate to the 40 percent of the company's customers who are
blind, and the rest who suffer various impairments.
Financing, marketing and hiring people for a business with no role
model has been another challenge, but Duncan and Clark have doubled
revenues each year and were profitable from the start. Sales in the
fiscal year ending March 31 will be around $4 million compared to $2.2
million last year. Duncan projects revenues of $5.5 million next year.
The company sells products enabling blind people to use computers and
be productive in today's high-tech work force. These products include
braille keyboards, voice-activated computers, and software that
magnifies computer icons and typefaces by 25 times.
Some of these products are customized and can cost upwards of $20,000.
When Charles Schwab wanted to install technology to allow its one
blind stockbroker to have the latest adaptive bells and whistles,
Clark spent a week installing and training there.
Government agencies make up 50 percent of the business, but major
corporate clients include Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Graphics and United
Airlines.
At United, there are a number of reservationists in San Francisco who
use braille keyboards to read flight: schedules and have a talking
computer that they listen to in one car while fielding travelers'
questions in their other ear.
The Americans with Disability Act, a federal mandate, has prompted
government agencies as well as businesses to accommodate handicapped
employees. Historically, blind people were limited to work as
teachers, masseuses, piano tuners and assembly line workers, but
technology has opened doors to higher-paying and highertech work.
The challenge for AccessAbility is to find these people, sell them the
right products and -- perhaps most importantly and costly -- provide
intensive training. It is attempting to build a regional presence in
an industry populated by very small local firms. A national company,
HumanWare, also sells these products but doesn't offer training.
Duncan launched the business using $10,000 of his savings, but cash
flow became an issue a year out He went to Wells Fargo for a loan and
came away with $100,000.
"It was remarkable. We were such a small company with so little
invested in it, but they saw the government was a customer and that
some of Wells' own employees were using our products," Duncan said. He
used the loan to expand, buying small companies in Los Angeles and
Oregon that were doing the same thing.
Duncan's goal of becoming a regional company requires another $2
million, and in mid-February the company will embark on a private
placement The company's chief financial officer is Richard Duncan, a
Southern California-based certified public accountant and Scoffs fully
sighted father. Richard Duncan's contacts and client base has captured
10 percent of the funding already. With those proceeds, Scott Duncan
seeks to make acquisitions in Seattle, Portland and San Diego, and
then take the concept national.
Marketing is a challenge partially because traditional advertising
doesn't work with an audience that can't see. Jerry Kuns, senior sales
manager and a former HumanWare executive, said the best strategy is
getting on the road and meeting with health and senior citizen
organizations.
Kuns will do a technology seminar in March for the Retired Teacher's
Association in Merced. Many people, especially senior citizens, have
given up on reading because of failing eyesight and diseases like
diabetes that affect their vision, not realizing that technology
exists that could assist them.
If the company is to grow, it needs staffing. That's a problem in a
business that has few competitors and where most tech-savvy workers
already gainfully employed and well-paid. AccessAbility has been
retraining occupational therapists, giving them computer skills. The
company has also taught computer-savvy people the world of adaptive
technology, but in either case training is costly.
Making acquisitions of smaller companies who have capable trainers is
easier and more cost efficient, Duncan said. The company has three
full-time trainers on staff and contracts with 10 others.
Customers said that AccessAbility has gone above and beyond to make
their working lives possible. Kathleen Knox, manager for fund raising
at SanRafael's Guide Dogs for the Blind, has followed the company's
progress from its inception.
"They have allowed me to access new databases and achieve a personal
dream I have always had, to be able to read the New York Sunday Times
at home in my kitchen. They enabled me to to read it on the Internet,"
Knox said.
She credits Clark with doing near-Herculean customization work on her
new software called Jaws that has allowed her access to CD ROM
databases. Clark will invest 20 hours in customizing her computer for
the most recent Jaws upgrades.
Bank of America's Lynn Watts works in its interactive banking
department and is another big fan of AccessAbility. She is blind and
said the company has done a lot to help blind people advance their
careers.
"Scott and Steve are available. When our network people came down to
install programs recently, we could always find them immediately,"
Watts said. "When you call the company there is always somebody there
who is knowledgeable about the products."
Snapshot
Company: AccessAbility Inc., a San Francisco company selling computer
products customized to allow visually impaired people to work.
CEO: Scott Duncan.
Founded: 1997.
Employees: 20.
Revenue: $2.2 million in fiscal 1999, $4 million in fiscal 2000
(projected) and $5.5 million in fiscal 2001. Fiscal year ends March
31.
Elements of success: Training visually impaired customers on the
intricacies of technology. Half the company's employees are visually
impaired.
Challenge: Marketing, and finding enough qualified computer trainers
who can teach blind people to use technology.
Web site: www.4access.com
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