Fixed Wireless Equipment

The Super Antenna — continued

He took out a $50,000 mortgage loan on his Waterloo home and used $30,000 of it to purchase the company's first Hewlett-Packard network analyzer. The partners went to work and within six months came up with innovative antenna technology that solved problems with older designs.

Chen took prototypes to the PCS (Personal Communications Services) show in Dallas in 1997 in a briefcase and almost immediately found a buyer in antenna maker Maxrad, now PCTel Inc. Maxrad wanted exclusive licensing rights to what would become Superpass's first patent, and pumped money into the fledgling company to help it productize the technology.

"We were poor," Chen recalls. "Our strength was our brand, our technology, but we didn't have capital. So the company strategy was to quickly make patented technology and sell it."

With the Maxrad money, Chen was able to pay off the initial loan that same year and has never received any other outside funding. "So right away, we become profitable. We didn't owe any money, not from 1997 right up to now." Not many startups can claim to be profitable within 12 months.

His partners continued to work on research and development and within a year came up with a new design that was even better than the first and was duly patented. Maxrad wanted exclusive rights again, but Chen said no.

"We said, 'Sorry, but we're not only a technology provider. We want to try one day to manufacture our own antennas.' They respect us. So then we become competitors."

Today
One can't help wondering if there is more to this story than appears in Chen's simple retelling. But despite his suggestion that the later Superpass designs effectively made the first "obsolete," PCTel still pays him royalties after ten years. And the firm today manufactures all its own products in Waterloo.

Although at some point Chen bought out his original partners—he's a bit vague about the timing—the firm has continued to crank out new antenna technology and eventually came up with three more patentable designs. All of Superpass's current products are based on one or more of the four designs it developed after the first.

"Each has a uniqueness to it," Chen says. "Either it allows for wider bandwidth or makes it very easy to increase gain—those kinds of things. The WiMAX products are based on all four patented technologies."

Research and development remains at the core of what the company does. Superpass has no official relationship today with the University of Waterloo, but does exchange information about wireless design with researchers there, Chen says.

It continues to plan and work on new product lines too. Just recently, Chen heard about an innovative new radio product coming from Ubicom Inc. that presents some unique challenges for antenna design. Superpass is already gearing up to develop products to meet Ubicom's specifications.

And it continues to work on OEM projects.

"I took an order from a customer the other day," Chen says. "He was asking for a 2.2 GHz antenna. I ask him what bandwidth he needs. He says, 100 MHz per channel. I say, no problem. One feature of our antenna technology is wider bandwidth. And today and for the future, bandwidth is the most important thing."

The company's patents give it a huge competitive advantage, he claims, and its market share as a result continues to increase.

No wonder then, if true, that bigger outfits have been sniffing around lately with a view to acquiring Superpass. Chen is currently in negotiations with one that he describes as a major technology company traded on the over-the-counter stock market. PCTel? He's not saying.

Chen hasn't even decided for sure whether he wants to sell. "I'm 52," he says, chuckling. "The horse still has a little more power in it." And he certainly doesn't want to "sell the company too cheap." But he's open to offers.

"If the price is right, if there's a fit and everything else is fine, I'll decide according to my heart," he says. "Maybe I'll say, 'John, this is the time.' I have other business ventures in my mind that I believe can contribute to society and also be very profitable."

—End

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