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When George Smith and Don Berry combined their answering service background and computer expertise in 1980 to form the StarTelCorporation, it didn't take them long to get the message about what it takes to be successful.
These days it doesn't take the Irvine-based company long to get -- or give, for that matter -- any message. StarTel makes and markets messaging systems that use computers to answer phones and take messages. The company is a leader in the telephone answering service (TAS) market, as well as its rapid sales growth over the last few years, have made it one of Orange County's fastest growing companies, and earned it the 44th spot on Inc. Magazine's list of the 100 top growth companies nationwide.
The company's figures, however, say it all. In four years, the company's sales growth has increased a total of 2,473%. In spite of a difficult electronics market, revenues in 1985 were $11.0 million, up 10% from 1984. StarTel now prides itself on being debt-free, with current assets of $5.3 million and a ratio increasing to 6.3, up from 2.9 in 1984.
StarTel's recipe for success appears to be a blending of equal parts of planned growth with heavy investment in customer support, market development, and research and development, added to the most vital ingredient of them all -- the quality of the product line.
"When a call comes into a client who's not there, the call is then forwarded to the messaging center. It goes into our equipment, and then is transmitted back to the client -- either by voice storage and retrieval, a pager, or a beeper," explained William F. Mahoney, president and chief operating officer. "The screen is key to our system," he continued, "in that it's a very intelligent screen. Operators can be trained ina very short period of time to become very efficient at how to take and deliver messages."
Until fairly recently, "StarTel's core business was with the answering service industry," Mahoney said. Its clients include the Mobile Communications Corporation of America, the fourth largest radio common carrier in the United States, and Answer America, one of the largest answering organizations in the country. "That's what StarTel was founded as, and that's where the initial growth came...