It’s a Friday afternoon in North Carolina and Laura Schoppe, president of Fuentek, LLC, is sitting in her virtual office surrounded by her two dogs. She’s in a great mood and has reason to be. Her technology transfer firm, which she started almost 10 years ago, has exceeded expectations, successfully sailing right through the economic downturn.
“We sailed right through the recession without any hiccup at all,” affirms Schoppe, “And it’s been a steady growth. We went from $1 million in the first year to $2 million and our peak last year was $2.5 million.”
The youngest daughter of immigrants who moved to the United States from Argentina in the late ‘60’s, Schoppe is the embodiment of the American Dream. She has singlehandedly built her multi-million dollar company, Fuentek, from a $4,000 investment.
“I started back in 2001 and I spent my own money to setup. It was $4,000 at the time to buy a desk, computer and a printer. Because most of what we do is computer and phone based, I didn’t need a significant capital investment,” states the 48-year-old entrepreneur.
With more entrepreneurs now turning to virtual offices as an alternative to conventional office spaces, Fuentek was 100% virtual from day one.
“The idea of a virtual company back in the early 2000 was not comfortable to everybody,” she says. “They felt that you need to have people in a brick and mortar environment, to have control over them and the product, to guarantee quality. So there was some education upfront to help people understand that the office does not make the person. It took just about a month with each new client before they got over that. As soon as they saw our product, it was out of the window and they never asked again,” she adds.
Based on the Spanish word, “fuente,” which means, “fountain,” Fuentek, LLC, is a consulting firm that provides intellectual property and technology management services.
“We help clients to deliver technologies that they have developed and find new users for them. Likewise, we help them find solutions for technical problems,” says Schoppe, whose employees are a predominate mix of scientists and engineers.
“We have three types of clients,” explains Schoppe. “We have corporate clients, government clients and university clients. During the recession, the corporate and university clients shut down. Some had their endorsements hugely hit, and in the case of the universities, their state funding was really hit. However, our government clients were fine. The university work has been ramping up the last few months, so the balance has tipped in the other direction. The cash flow doesn’t switch that much, but your composition does. My suspicion is that the corporate clients will come back in 6 to 12 months,” she adds.
Fuentek, LLC, works directly with clients to identify technologies and assists them in converting these ideas and inventions into marketable products.
“It’s a B2B arena and we are not dealing typically with the low tech consumer,” says Schoppe. “My initial plan for the company was twofold,” she continues on her basic infrastructure, “One was the client prospective of coming up with a model that would provide them [clients] with the best services in a most cost effective way. The second was looking internally and creating a culture and environment, which would attract really high quality people and an environment where they would enjoy their work.”
Fuentek, LLC is now the largest NASA contractor in North Carolina. They played a major role in the commercialization of NASA’s HSEG technology with an interactive Web site, which was developed as a way of registering interest and downloading the HSEG software for evaluation. They have also helped organizations around the world find the technology they need and offer training workshops, guidebooks and Web sites to help clients improve effectiveness in managing their intellectual property.
“We are between 30 and 40 engineers and scientists depending on which consultants we are using at the time, but we also have technical writers and graphic artists. The bulk of our staff is here in North Carolina,” she adds. “We have people in Massachusetts, California and several places in-between there. So we attract people from around the country, that are high quality, and they come to us through a couple of mechanisms. The primary one that we prefer is through referral. Somebody knows them or a client knows them, so we have that one lead and quality information on where they come from.”
With several other companies offering the same services, what sets Fuentek apart, according to Schoppe, is the ability to match the right person to the right project.
“When we won the NASA contract a few years ago, we won on two things: our reputation and the ability to put the right person on the right job,” states Schoppe. “If you put a mechanical engineer on a life science project, it is an unhappy situation. The client is not going to be satisfied with the product because they don’t really have the technical competence to fully understand that technology. Almost all of our clients are repeat clients. You have to build an environment of trust and competency to be able to say that.”
Schoppe’s company has received numerous awards for its work, including an entrepreneurial Pinnacle Business Award from the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. It was recently named a finalist in the NCTA 21 awards (North Carolina Technology Association) in the category of ‘most innovative technology company’. A huge accomplishment for Schoppe, who says she suffered from dyslexia as a child.
“I had dyslexia but nobody knew it,” she says. “I was a very slow reader. I had myself tested when I decided to go to graduate school, because I knew I was an incredibly slow reader, and because I was afraid of not being able to keep up,” adds Schoppe, who has an MS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, a BS, in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MBA in Technology Marketing.
“Both of my parents are chemical engineers. They are Latin Catholics who emigrated here back in the early ‘60s from Argentina, when my father came here to do his graduate studies at Princeton, so education was a big thing growing up. My brother is also a chemical engineer,” she continues. “Engineering was introduced at a young age, because both my parents saw that as the best opportunity for employment, success and flexibility.”
It’s an introduction which has paid off for the math’s savvy Schoppe, who was one of the few females in her engineering class – a field, which wasn’t typical for women while she was growing up.
“There are more women in it now,” she adds. “Looking back at my high school years, to be a girl taking calculus, physics and chemistry in high school, you were ostracized. That was what guys did. Being smart was not attractive. It was threatening. Society does not encourage girls to be smart. They want to be pretty and non-threatening and act dumb.”
Being smart for Schoppe was “a rite of passage.” With a wealth of experience in mechanical and chemical engineering, she also has more than 12 years of experience in spearheading research for several defense contractors. Her vast experience and education coupled with her wit, has ensured survival and progress in a male dominated industry.
“In my early career, I used to work in the defense industry back in the ‘80s and ‘90s during the Tailhook scandal days, which was a horrible Navy scandal of sexual harassment with women,” Schoppe states. “You don’t get a much rougher male dominated environment, but it can be to your advantage,” she adds. “You act intelligently and know what you are doing and you very quickly get past whatever bias they might have and they don’t forget you.”
DiversityBusiness.com has recognized Fuentek, LLC, as a top women-owned, diversity-owned and small business in North Carolina for the past five consecutive years. It’s a recognition Schoppe values, for visibility and hard work equals growth. Although males still dominate the engineering industry these days, Schoppe has a higher percentage of female employees working for her.
“I think that is more to do with structure of what we are, because we are not a full time employer,” Schoppe clarifies. “It tends to be harder for men to live in that environment.”
Schoppe’s employees all work from home, which ensures a minimal capital risk for her.
With a huge clientele, advertising is minimal for Fuentek, which works mostly on a referral basis. Their hiring practices, which include a series of well structured phone interviews, ensure that Schoppe hires the best in the business – a talented team of engineers, marketers, researchers, writers, and commercialization experts with advanced technical, engineering, and business degrees.
“We are very picky and take a very long time in our hiring process, for personnel is always an important area regardless of what kind of business you are,” quips Schoppe. “I think because we are virtual, it is more of a challenge, because you are not seeing someone in the hallway day to day. We have systems in place to make sure we catch those issues that a brick and mortar organization may not have to pay as much attention to as we do.”
This system includes multiple behavioral interviews with prospective candidates, in which a series of open ended questions are posed. Attitude, thought process and goals play a huge part in hiring.
“As the saying goes; ‘hire slow, fire fast’ and that’s exactly what we do,” adds Schoppe, who has a trusted team of her senior staff conduct these initial interviews. “It could take us up to two months to hire someone, but I can fire them in two hours. What we are listening for during the interviews is their thought process and what kind of judgment they showed in the scenarios they wish to share.”
As Fuentek embarks on a new fiscal year, stability, growth and to have an even mix of corporate, university and government clients is Schoppe’s main mission.
“Getting that stability and growth and getting the team in that 40-45 range of people is my focus,” she continues, “one of our goals is establishing ourselves as being the expert in this field and to be the recognized leader. In the world of tech transfers, there are several firms that do tech transfer services, and we are one of the biggest, even though we are a small company. We want to be established as the go-to company. We are on our way to being recognized for that for right now we are considered the leader in using social media for technology marketing.”
Through blogging and tweeting, Fuentek helps advertise their client’s technologies as it gets picked up faster on searches.
“The tweeting that we do,” Schoppe adds, “is sharing information about interesting articles and events. It is on the professional side and has been very effective for us.”
With plans to expand internationally in Spain and China, Schoppe is an avid supporter of The V Foundation, which funds critical cancer research and First Robotics, a non-profit organization founded by Dean Kamen to inspire young people’s interest in science and technology.
“I am on the North Carolina steering committee,” she states. “For someone like me who is very busy, but wants to give back and encourage kids to get into math and science, it’s a great organization and so I happily donate my time and money to that.”
Schoppe, who travels extensively, recently returned from Costa Rica with her husband and will certainly agree that running a virtual company makes it a little easier to travel. As long as she has internet access, she can stay on top of things – to a degree.
“We travel a lot and our vacations are adventure vacations. We had an amazing motorcycle vacation in New Zealand and did three weeks on motorcycles on the South Island. I like to do small things so you can get more out of it. My next target is the Tuscan area in Italy and probably a cruise of the Greek Islands. You do need to unwind and it’s healthy to get away and get some relaxation,” she adds. “Our contracts are longer term and I have the upmost confidence in my staff. One of the comments that I hear from people who run brick and mortar companies is; ‘how you can trust your employees?’ My answer is; they shouldn’t be your employee if you don’t trust them.”
And if there’s anything this smart, savvy and successful entrepreneur has learned about running a profitable business, it’s the importance of the word “respect.”
“In high school, I worked in restaurants rising through the ranks from bus girl to bartender. That drove me not wanting to do it for the rest of my life, but it also helped me later in my careers. I realized that whoever it is I was dealing with, they were the same as a plumber. Treat them both the same. One gets the same respect as the other. In order to have a successful environment and it doesn’t matter what your business is, you need to treat people well and they will treat you well right back.”
