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Fylstra was fascinated by computers, so much so that fellow students at Harvard presented him with the "Daniel Fylstra Computerized Universe Award." Between M.I.T. and the Harvard Business School, he worked for a year as an engineer at Intermetrics, Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., designing software for NASA'S space shuttle and for the European Space Agency. That large bureaucracy, with its predictable snafus, coupled with his own lack of influence, persuaded Fylstra to strike out on his own. Says Fylstra: "I always felt uncomfortable with the system, with the conventional way of doing things."
As a project for a Harvard marketing course, Fylstra and a friend founded Personal Software in 1978 with an initial investment of $500. The company produced programs for personal computers, which were just then starting to come onto the market in great numbers. In 1979 Fylstra moved Personal Software to California's Silicon Valley.
The company's main product is VisiCalc, a program for small computers that helps small-and medium-size businesses in planning and budgeting. Fylstra did not develop VisiCalc. That was done by Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston, software designers and M.I.T. alumni. But Fylstra was the one who began marketing it, and turned VisiCalc into the most popular small computer program. So far, some 200,000 copies (price: $250) have been sold. Expected sales for VisiCalc and the company's other software programs this year: $35 million.
Fylstra, who last week changed the name of his firm to VisiCorp, is at one of the many turning points for an entrepreneur. The company faces stiff competition from VisiCalc's many upstart imitators, among them makers of computer hardware who are selling more and more of their own software. Industry analysts see VisiCorp as a likely candidate for going public during the next two years. With appraisals of the company's worth running about $125 million, a public stock offering would make Fylstra an even wealthier young man. That would free him to strike out in another new direction or work toward becoming even bigger in the burgeoning software market.
King Pong
Nolan Bushnell, 39 last week, is the inventor of Pong, a kind of electronic Ping Pong that was the first successful coin-operated video game. The son of a Clearfield, Utah, cement contractor, Bushnell had a passion for amateur radio as a boy (call letters: W7DUK). That led to his first business: repairing radios, television sets and washing machines. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah in 1968. While there, he toyed with computers. He came up with Pong in 1971 and started selling the coin-operated game in 1972.
In that year, Bushnell went into the business of making coin-operated games by founding Atari. (The name is a Japanese expression of warning.) Pong revolutionized the arcade business, then dominated by pinball machines. Bushnell, though, ran into a problem frequently suffered in start-up businesses: growth got out of control. The company lost heavily for several months on one popular product, Trak Ten. Explains Bushnell: "We thought we were making money hand over fist, but the machine was selling for $995 and costing $1,100 to build. We were shipping a $100 bill out the door with every unit."