A corporate titan buys local startup
Case Byte Technology’s device boosts storage space for MacIntosh laptops
New London — Ralph Belfiglio remembers being so awe-struck by the Chicago corporate headquarters building for Other World Computing that he got out of his car to snap a picture just before heading in to meet the computer-hardware company’s chief executive officer and founder, Larry O’Connor.
What happened inside the building last spring turned out to be way more amazing than the corporate headquarters itself.
During the meeting, O’Connor offered on the spot what Belfiglio termed a substantial amount of money for his new company, Case Byte Technology, which was launched just two years ago out of the Harris Place building on State Street.
“I thought he was kidding,” Belfiglio, a Waterford resident, said. “It was so unbelievable . ... Never in my wildest dreams did I think he was going to buy the company from me.”
Hardly able to speak, Belfiglio asked only that O’Connor put the offer in writing.
On his way back to the airport the offer popped into his email in-box, and it finally hit him that this wasn’t just a dream. He said he had to pull the car over as a wave of emotion overcame him.
“He put it in writing — that’s when I knew it was real,” Belfiglio said.
Belfiglio said he is not at liberty to say exactly how much the deal netted, but OWC bought everything: the name, patent, prototypes, website, product plans and even the few dozen unsold Case Byte external-hard drive products that he had managed to assemble in New London.
Case Byte, which operates out of offices adjacent to the downtown Astor Place video production firm that Belfiglio founded, sells a patented device that attaches to MacIntosh laptops to substantially boost storage space without any messy wires. Bel
figlio said OWC plans to keep the Case Byte name but will make significant changes to the product itself — changes that he had hoped for but ran out of money to implement.
He recalled O’Connor telling him he “did a good job” getting the product off the ground, “but it’s not where it should be.”
“I’ve taken it as far as I could take it; he’s going to take it to the next level,” Belfiglio said.
Belfiglio said he signed a letter of intent to sell the company, but it took about four months to finalize the sales agreement, which happened earlier this month. The agreement calls for several up-front payments followed by royalties based on overall sales of the Case Byte products, which fit onto a laptop like a computer case.
“They sell a lot of products but they make a lot of their own products,” Belfiglio said of OWC. “I’m hoping they start selling by Christmas.”
Belfiglio hit on the idea for Case Byte out of frustrations he faced with other external-drive storage solutions for laptops, which basically resulted in a tangle of wires protruding from the devices. Thanks to a local investor, Harry Leiser, Belfiglio managed to produce a prototype of Case Byte as well as a few hundred devices “just as a test.”
He then sent some of the products to tech reviewers, receiving some very positive feedback that nevertheless resulted in only a few sales.
Realizing he had to get some computer-accessory companies onboard to boost sales, Belfiglio reached out to O’Connor at OWC through LinkedIn, he said, and asked him if his company would like to carry Case Byte. Very quickly, O’Connor got back to Belfiglio and said the short answer was, yes, he’d like to carry it but he’d also like to talk to him about the product at his office in Chicago.
“It’s been a cool experience,” Belfiglio smiled.
But there’s also a bit of a hangover considering that Case Byte has filled up much of Belfiglio’s waking hours as he sweated over every detail of a new product, from conception to manufacturing to packaging to marketing.
“For the past two years it has been taking up so much of my life — now it’s all gone,” he said.
Belfiglio said he will be watching closely as OWC rolls out the new look of Case Byte, which will continue to be marketed to Apple customers. One change, he said, will be a Case Byte solution for iPads, and OWC will be seeking to extend his patent into Europe as well.
“They were the perfect people to take over the product,” Belfiglio said. “I can’t wait to see it on the market.”