Cecil, 40, founded Data Works Inc., now a leading retail inventory management software company, as a sole proprietorship in 1987 with "no vision, no business plan, and no concept of marketing." Two years later he joined forces with partner Nick Schwarz. In 1991, when Cecil and Schwarz were just starting to reach for the sky, recession hit.

It hit Data Works hard enough to pluck "two computer programming guys" from Class A office space to land them in a 400-square-foot back room in Naples. That's when Mark Cecil became his own sales force, a veritable "selling fool." And that's when Data Works began to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Cecil admits that he's received his own share of breaks. Mostly they've come through "sheer will power and hard work." His ability to reform his focus, energies and talents along unconventional tracks is uncanny. People apparently believe in Mark Cecil. Professors, employers and clients say, "You can do it," so he does.

"Data Works was founded totally on sweat, with very little cash," he says. Sweat equity has remained a modus operandi for this young imaginative entrepreneur.

Getting Started

Cecil recalls getting his start in the retail industry cleaning toilets, watering plants and lugging clothes hangars from the sales floor to the back room for friend and mentor Ed Verdesca of Jami's boutiques in Naples. Recompense was $3 an hour. But, hey, it was high school.

After college, with a fine arts degree and self-taught talent for programming "flying animated artworks," Cecil returned home to a new job offer. Would he, Verdesca asked, be willing to help develop an inventory control system at his old wage? A deal was struck for 10 times that offer. The value for the younger man was in unknowingly hatching Data Works, the next phase of his life's work. The bonus was in learning the retail trade from a management point of view.

Retail inventory management software developed for Jami's took off and went to work in dozens of other Florida boutiques, flexing to incorporate customer needs as it went. Data Works began participating in merchandise trade shows. The partners pushed on and hired a third employee. Now they were "two programming guys and a sales guy" in swanky office space. But they were overextended, and went into free fall when the market took a dive.

Cecil's solution was to strip the company to the bones and take to the skies. Two years and 80,000 frequent flyer miles later, he had 400 accounts, each with an annual renewable maintenance and support contract. He made invaluable contacts. One of them was mega-giant Micros, whose cash register and scanning products are found in nine of every 10 food and beverage point of sale operations in the United States.

A further stroke of luck came in 1994 when the Watkins family asked Data Works to write a seamless proprietary software package to tie together front office and back office operations for their Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club. Their proffered alternative was to write interface software that would tie Micros' point-of-sale system to Data Works' retail inventory management system. As Cecil points out, "It was much smarter to write an interface with Micros than to go into competition with them."

At the same time, Data Works' traditional market was in jeopardy. Independent boutiques were suffering at the hands of retail marts. And competition for accounts had heated up, with 30 firms now vying for the retail software niche. Thus began an informal engagement that was to launch Data Works' current focus on the soaring hospitality, leisure and entertainment industries.

New Markets

Hand in hand with Micros, Cecil turned his now prodigious sales skills to hotels, casinos, theme parks and golf resorts, all of which have retail shops and restaurants in common. He and his small staff, handpicked during his travels, regularly helped their giant friend land half-million dollar accounts in point-of-sale equipment, aided by Data Works software. In doing so, Data Works flew right by its competitors, "by about a factor of 10," Cecil estimates.

"The key to success was in having a single supplier feeding us sales leads," says Cecil. "A typical software company spends 15 percent of its budget on sales and marketing. We were spending zero." It surely beat his company's expenditure of $25,000 one year recruiting dealers to promote its products.

"Dancing with a single business partner also poses a liability," admits Cecil. "Micros' competitors kept asking us to do for them what we were doing so well for Micros. We said 'No' for two years. Our loyalty was rewarded when Micros asked us to infuse our retail component in their next generation product."

Fortunately, food and beverage retail operations are only a fraction of Micros' business. Recently, they've turned more attention to quick service (fast food) outlets, where retail isn't an issue, and so silently assented to Data Works courting other accounts.

The pursuit is on. Today, Cecil is shopping for new dance partners as well as a CFO for his company. He and his staff are calling on zoos, aquariums, stadiums and museums for new business. And he is open to taking his company public or selling to the right synergistic suitor.

"Acceleration is an issue for us," explains Cecil. "We've grown 50 percent in each of the past three years. It strips cash. We could grow 60 to 80 percent, but we're throttled by cash flow."

Cecil has no intention of a "sale and bail." He realizes that Data Works is an attractive acquisition because of "the assets that walk up the stairs every morning and walk down the stairs late every night."

Data Works' streamlined staff of 14 -- eight in Naples -- services customers on site and by remote. The high-pressure environment and periodic travel to sell, set-up and train customers is offset by an easy-going camaraderie, casual dress code and accommodation to home offices.

Unique Selling Advantage

"At present, we compete with five U.S. companies for back office retail solutions," says Patricia Seixas, Data Works vice president, an officer and shareholder since 1996. "Some of the other software programs require monster operating systems, which adds another $100,000 to the cost. Our PC-based approach fits with customers' existing infrastructure."

Perhaps most amazing is that despite the size of many hospitality, leisure and entertainment accounts, perhaps 30 percent still rely on hand-written systems to track inventory. The other 70 percent are limping along with outdated systems. "Casinos are probably the most sophisticated of the lot," notes Seixas. "But even their earlier systems have pieces missing. The data flow gets interrupted."

Data Works' primary software product, called Advanced Retail Management Solution (ARMS), enables retailers to be better buyers, better merchandisers and be