InformationWeek

So in 1991, the Ananthrams started a long process of building an IT services business. Kishan began as a one-man consultant; Brindala joined him part-time and eventually came on board full-time. It wasn't until 1994 that the two began hiring employees for what would become IonIdea Inc., a Fairfax, Va., company that last year had $20 million in revenue. The company focuses on high-demand IT services, such as Fortý and Java application development, for customers such as Cisco Systems' IS finance group.

Cash from an outside investor would have let them move faster. But the Ananthrams didn't want to ramp up too fast and then lay people off-a common problem in the people-intensive consulting business. "Firing anyone is not a very pleasant job, especially if it was because of a bad management decision," says Brindala, who as president runs the daily operations as her husband, the CEO, manages planning and business development.

IonIdea has about 250 employees in three U.S. offices and about 150 more in Bangalore, India, where the Ananthrams are from. A small company is different from Sprint, Brindala says, because it provides employees a chance to take more responsibility more quickly, but requires giving up perks such as business-class travel.

Brindala says her six years at a big company convinced her the trade-off is worth it. "If you've never worked for IBM or Sprint or HP," she says, "you'll always think you missed out in some way."

When talking about an IPO, the Ananthrams are as cautious as they were when starting the business. They need at least a couple more years to build a track record of sales growth and earnings. "I'm not averse to going public, but you have to be rock-solid first," Brindala says. "Wall Street is going to shake you, and it could kill you."

Michael Johns is trying to avoid going to Wall Street altogether. After 18 years working in IT and process control in the electricity and water industries, last year he launched AppliTTech International LLC, a Pittsburgh software development and consulting business, to sell diagnostic applications to those markets. "We're still trying to do it the old-fashioned way and fund it from projects," Johns says. "We're finding it difficult, but we're trying."

Johns had done well in the corporate environment-he managed a new product launch in Europe for Westinghouse Electronics Controls and started a Westinghouse operating group in the former Czechoslovakia in 1992. But launching a business line on Westinghouse's money was far from building his own idea from the ground up.

So he tapped the international ties he'd built at Westinghouse to start AppliTTech. The company's chief technology officer is a Polish professor and entrepreneur, Konrad Swirski, whose software development company provides the technical backbone for AppliTTech. Another partner, Prabir Purkayastha, does software development in New Delhi, India.

Johns says he can't guarantee that AppliTTech will survive in the long run. Last year, it got by on contracts from Siemens AG, the German power-plant giant, to help set up new gas turbine systems. But his goal is to sell and service AppliTTech's own software application, including a "neural-maintenance" system that monitors power and water-treatment plants and alerts administrators when service is needed. He's considering bringing in outside investors, fearing that his grow-from-within strategy may not let him spend enough on marketing to get his product out before the competition catches up.

Life as an entrepreneur has surprised Johns. He compares it to coaching a professional sports team: up one week, down the next. And he wasn't prepared for the solitude of running a small business, where he's very often on his own to make an important decision."In some ways, it's more difficult than I imagined, and not for the reasons I expected," Johns says. "It can be a very lonely life as an entrepreneur sometimes."

So add loneliness to the list of business-building challenges-hiring employees, creating a company culture, and beating the competition-that IT entrepreneurs face. But if they're willing to accept all that, think they'll let a cooling IPO market stop them?