Silicon Valley, Lone Star Tech, Mass Technology from Silicon Maps

Michael Desrosiers

East Bay Business Times - Thursday August 18, 2005 - Jeff Nachtigal

Photo: Stephanie Secrest

Finding a space: His company's maps fit into the right niche.

Michael Desrosiers readily admits that caricature city maps weren't his idea.

But 17 years ago, Desrosiers, founder of Silicon Maps Inc., decided he could build a better map. Today his company has done just that, turning out more than 400 caricature maps and carving a comfortable niche in the world of promotional-map marketing.

The "Where's Waldo?"-esque caricature maps provide an arial view of city businesses, streets and landmarks, and a way for local businesses to gain exposure beyond the yellow pages.

"I just felt I could do a better job," said Desrosiers, 45, with an affable smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "I have the sales background and the people to create a project that works from start to finish. I can't draw, but I do feel like I have talent for artistic vision and I'm able to relay that to the artists."

With a team of artists, Desrosiers founded City Design - now a division of Silicon Maps, Inc. - in 1989 out of his house in Pleasanton. The company's first city map depicted Manteca, "because we wanted to start out small."

Santa Cruz was next, followed by hundreds more over the years, including maps for nearly every city in the Bay Area and dozens more across the country. The company now offers maps and calendars for the high-tech and biotech industries, promotional products and Web design.

It was the Silicon Valley map with a listing of high-tech companies that really got the company going in the late 1990s. The Silicon Valley map sold "20 times" more than any city map. That success took a sharp turn south with the dot-com bust, but has since began to pick up.

The San Ramon-based company is now on target to reach $1 million in sales for 2005, climbing back toward the company's $1.7 million zenith reached in 2001.

Desrosiers smiles when he talks about the high-tech industry map that boomed along with the rest of Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. The first map of the area was "pre-Internet, pre-Yahoo," and included hardly any high-tech businesses.

Over the years the Silicon Valley map - which differs from caricature maps in that it uses company logos and isn't hand-drawn - has tracked the ups and downs of business in the Valley.

The map is especially popular in Japan, Desrosiers noted, because it defines a well-known area that doesn't appear on any official maps.

With the Silicon Valley high-tech map business booming in the late 1990s, Desrosiers stopped producing city maps. It was all high-tech maps and calendars, all the time.