Brothers Swim Upstream with Danube Technologies to Win SBA Young Entrepreneur Award

Washington State Small Business Person of the Year, Rocky Wens, Competes for National Small Business Person of the Year Award in Orlando May 19th

What would you do, barely out of college with little or no money, no experience with software development or computer technology, living in the backyard of the behemoth - the world's largest developer of computer operating and software systems - just as dotcoms and tech industries are going bust all around? 

What else but start a software development and computer technology solutions company, based not on the Windows operating system but on an "open standards" programming language developed by one of Microsoft's competitors, Sun Microsystems.

That's what two self-described "naïve" young men did in December 1999, starting Danube Technologies, Inc.  The success of Victor and Laszlo Szalvay in beating the odds and growing a successful small business won the brothers honors as the U. S. Small Business Administration Washington District Office Young Entrepreneurs of the Year. 

Twenty-five-year-old Laszlo is President.  Victor, 28, is Vice President of Project Services.  At the annual SBA awards ceremony April 8 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center on Pier 66 in Seattle, the two brothers were surprised by their parents, Laszlo Sr. and Iren, who flew in from Sarasota, Fla. to help recognize their sons' success. 

Their business is named for the river in Hungary, the country their parents fled in the 1960s to escape communism.  But it isn't just family genealogy that the brothers have invoked with the business name; it's a can-do attitude they believe they inherited - or learned - by watching their parents' teamwork, entrepreneurialism and hard work. 

While still in school, Victor and Laszlo Szalvay started a dotcom company with a friend.  Although that venture did not take off as hoped, it fueled the brothers' interest in software/Web application development and led to the creation of Danube Technologies.
Rather than providing an off-the-shelf product that is not owned by a business, Danube builds a custom application using Sun's Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform.  Danube's customers ultimately own the copyright and distribution rights to the final product.  

Sales for 2004 are anticipated to exceed $1 million - four times the earnings from their first full-year in business.  Along the way the brother's received help from the SBA's technical assistance partner in the state, the Washington Small Business Development Center.  WSBDC Business Development Specialist Michael Franz assisted them with a growth plan, helping them build a business that today employs 13 people in Bellevue and is on track to handle future growth.  

More than a dozen other small business owners and supporters of Washington small business development joined Victor and Laszlo in accepting awards from the SBA and SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business."  Other winners are as follows:
Washington State Small Business Person of the Year, Rocky Wens, President, ESP, Inc., Lynnwood.  Exporter of the Year, Garry Struthers, President, Garry Struthers Associates, Inc., Bellevue; Entrepreneurial Success, Carlos Herrera, President, Herrera Environmental Consultants, Inc. Seattle; Home-based Business Leadership award, Nina Auerbach, CEO, Child Care Resources, Seattle; Minority Small Business Leadership award, Cheryl Jones, National Accounts Director, Starbucks Coffee Co., Seattle; Women-owned Business Leadership award, Carole Butkus, director, Women's Business Center, Community Capital Development, Seattle; Financial Assistance Leadership award, Shirley Osborn, Vice President, Whidbey Island Bank, Burlington; Small Business Journalism Leadership award , Lawrence F. "Lary" Coppola, President and CEO, Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal, Port Orchard.  More information about the award winners is at www.sba.gov/wa/seattle/sea04winners.html.  

Wens is president of a small defense department contracting firm that has grown from one to 325 employees in 14 years.   As the state small business person of the year, Rocky goes on to national competition for recognition as the SBA National Small Business Person of the Year. The announcement of this award will be made during national small business week, May 19-21 in Orlando.  For more information on this event and to register for the conference, go to www.sba.gov/50/Expo2004.html.