Bill Anderson calls it his "aha" moment - that sudden flash of insight when he drew a career-altering connection between decades-old research and his job as a computer security expert.
At that time, nearly two years ago, Anderson had a comfortable job as vice president at an established computer security firm in Maryland. But while sitting on his couch one day reading Consciousness Explained, a book by American philosopher Daniel Dennett, Anderson learned about one scientist's research into variations in the way the human eye reads and processes text and images.
"This obscure characteristic about the way eyes work and the way the brain understands the way the eyes work, suddenly struck me as [a solution to] a security problem," said Anderson, who has a doctorate in cryptology. "I said, 'Holy cow. No one has thought of using this to protect the contents of a screen.' It was just some obscure research."
Gathering his courage, Anderson, 42, quit his job at SafeNet Inc. in Belcamp, raised $1.2 million in seed money from friends and family, and plunged full time into developing his idea - a software program that allows only an authorized user to read text on the screen, while everyone else sees gibberish.
With the help of a couple of software developers, he tested, tweaked and revamped the software over the course of several months. He immersed himself in the Baltimore area's start-up scene, turning to CEOs, attorneys, serial entrepreneurs and other experts for guidance. Along the way, he won some early recognition, including an Innovator of the Year Award last week from the Maryland Technology Development Corp., and some funding from the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
Now, 18 months after he launched Oculis Labs Inc., Anderson has three pending patents and two products ready to be pushed into the market by his four-person company in Owings Mills. Venture capital firms and angel investors are courting him - even in the toughest start-up investment climate in a decade.
He hopes he can land a defense-related government contract for his most powerful product, Chameleon, in the next few months. His first contract would likely make his company more appealing to venture capitalists, who are looking to fund start-ups that are pulling in revenue.
"Good companies get to be funded in bad times as well as good economic times," said Mark Esposito, who tracks the mid-Atlantic venture capital market as director of emerging company services for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. "They may be hungrier, and there's a more robust set of entrepreneurs out there."
