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Tiny Software, Inc. develops networking solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. Its flagship product WinRoute is a software router and firewall for Windows. It connects local area networks to the Internet with a high degree of security and allows all of the computers in the network to share a single Internet connection.

The company started in the Czech Republic in 1997 but recently moved its headquarters to the U.S. "You can of course start your company on the Net and sell through the Net but your sales will be virtually zero unless you are really there [in Silicon Valley]," said Mr. Roman Kasan, President & CEO of Tiny Software, Inc., in his interview for Czech computer magazine Connect.

Tiny Software has adopted a business model which is becoming more and more common among successful software and Internet companies from Eastern Europe: a team of local developers at home, headquarters, marketing and sales in the U.S., preferably in Silicon Valley, and sharp image of American company. Tiny Software looks like one of numerous Californian startups, with only one important difference: it didn't use money of angel investors. Instead, it used the money it started with to finance all its activities. The 1999 total revenue reached US$ 2.3 million.

The next step is probably going to be direct sales to a large software company. In 1998, Tiny Software was in talks with Microsoft but the Redmond giant preferred a similar solution from another startup. Currently, it is completing its acquisition talks with Corel Corp., who is based in Ottawa, Canada.