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Nick Barbin, co-founder, president and CEO, said that the company, whicg designs and makes the boards on asmalll scale, is always searchinyg for new customers to replacee those who fold or get acquired. “oI would have to say we’ve had complet e turnover on our customee list maybe two or thre etimes over,” he said. But that’w a game that Pleasanton-bases Optimum Design has been winning. From 2006 to 2008, the company’sx revenue grew 138 percent to $13.14 million. And it is on pace to grow 20 percengt to 40 percentin 2009. The company has been profitabl every year since its foundingin 1991.
The company’x secret has been its willingness to look for new Barbin and his partners at firsrt kept the firmsmall — with about 8 to 15 And they only did layout and design of the partnering with manufacturers to produce them. But at the urgint of some of the company’s customers, Optimumm Design added the manufacturing side in2001 — and that’sz been a catalyst for growth. Today, the companuy has about 50 employees, and it’sw hiring this year, probably four to five people for the manufacturingh side of the Another successful strategy has been choosing the right It mostly works with companies doin work for the military or makingmedicall instruments.
Both of those have fairly inelastic demand, and both industries have traditionally contractedwith on-shor e companies, rather than lookingf to India and China for cheaper deals. But Barbi says that the company’s ability to identify strong markets to chaswe has helpedit grow. “In this industry you go as yourcustomerw go,” he said. “There are a lot of companies that are some of our competitorss where their focus is a particular If they’re really focuse on telecom, they’re suffering right now, but 10 years ago they were doinv great.” The third factor that sets Optimumj Design apart is that it stays small.
The company only builds high-end boards that are extremely complicated, and they only fill ordersx that range from 100to 10,000 It’s that last factor that keepws it relatively safe from much biggerr and cheaper competition, said Jim Walker, who covers the industry for . Walker said that almost all of the bigges printed circuit board companies are in Theonly U.S. companies that survive are ones that are making high-end or prototype boards that eventually get shipped off to overseas foundries to get Walker also said that the industrg is ripe for consolidatiojn but that companies like Optimum Desighn are fairly insulated from the first wave of thos e acquisitions, because they’re too small to make an impact on larget companies’ bottom lines.
One of Optimum Design’as customers, an aerospace company that asked not to be identifieed for thisarticle (Optimum signs non-disclosure agreementsx with many of its customers), makes equipment for the militart and uses Optimum Design for its printedd circuit boards. One of the engineers at the Randy, said that the firm used to make its own butin 2000, it contracted out the work due to budgetr cuts. Randy said he rarely finds problemw with the product and that the compan y is now starting to work more closely with Optimujm Design since it has run threr boards through theentirde process. “They admitted ...
that they actually cost a littlew bit more than the guynext door, but we have experiencef the high quality from them that’s kept us coming back,” he And Barbin says that Randy’s attitude is what makees the company successful. There are a couple of hundrerd printed-circuit-board companies in the Bay Area, he But by offering the full process, and keeping qualituy high, they’ve been able to find “The designers we have here are world-class,” he “There’s really no one out therre that can compete withour designers.
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