PIKMLF The Coior ofMoney
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Written by Lisa Crowe
he designed while working on a Ph.D. at Tech. "I got dragged into my first company by accident," Muench admits. "I was just tinkering around, but when people saw the product, they wanted to use it." When Muench drummed up $337,000 from LaSalle Street Capital, then the major owners of the Atlanta Braves, he abandoned his thesis— and a job at Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. in Marietta—to start up Integrated Systems in 1967. Five years later, the company was sold for $1 million. In 1973 Muench founded another Atlanta company—Intelligent Systems—that made color CRT terminals. The company went public seven years later and acquired halfa-dozen divisions, including a British
harles A. Muench never meant to make it as a highflying entrepreneur. When he received his B.S. in engineering from Tech back in I960, he assumed he'd be a company man just like everyone else. "We didn't have much of an entrepreneurial spirit back then," Muench says. "The goal was to go out and work for a big company." But instead of punching a time clock as a salaried employee, , Muench is cutting international distribution deals as the founder, chairman and president of Colorocs, a thriving Atlanta-based color copying firm. Muench's first business venture was the inadvertent result of an invention—a computerized energymanagement system for utilities that
The Muench File • i960: Graduates from Georgia Tech, • 1964: Receives master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida. • 1967: Starts Integrated Systems Inc. • 1973: Founds Intelligent Systems Corp. • 1980: Founds I'rintaColor Inc. to manufacture and market colorprinter terminals anil Color Graphics Inc. to make four-color
Lithographic equipment. • 1981: Named F.ntrcprcneur of the Year by Atlanta alumni chapter of Stanford,I Iniversity. • 1982: Founds Colorocs Inc. • 1983: Named High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year by the Atlanta High lech Venture Capital Conference, • 1983: Named to Tech's National Advisory Board. • 1985: Joins Advisory Board of Tech's School of Electrical
Engineering. • 1985: Resigns from Intelligent Systems to serve as CEO of Colorocs. J
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GEORGIA TECH • Fall 1990
branch, before Muench sold out in 1985. The success of his first two companies proved Muench's business acumen, but Colorocs is the venture that could make him a major international high-tech player. During the first year of shipments, starting in June 1989, Colorocs cornered 20 percent of the color copier market and sold 5,600 of its S 17,000 machines. Third quarter revenues for the three months ending June 30 were up 2,000 percent from the same period a year ago—from $635,000 to $13.5 million.
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rint shops comprise 80 percent of the current color copier market, but Muench predicts that eventually almost everyone will be drawn to color copying. "The point will come—fix >m a business standpoint—when color will be necessary," Muench said. "Color adds spice to life; it's an attention-getter. "It's like black and white versus color television; how many people watch black-and-white TV?" If Muench is right, the potential for company profit is astronomical. Only one percent of the color copier market uses color copiers, and Colorocs' revenues are already soaring. In anticipation of a burgeoning market, Muench holds 15 patents for color copiers and is developing a smaller copier priced under $ 10,000 that should be ready to sell by 1992. Although color copiers supply the bulk of Colorocs' business, the company recently released a color printer for $30,000 and Muench is