By: Carrie Shook

To make some extra dough, Harvard juniors John Chuang, Steven Kapner and Mia Wenjen started a desktop publishing business in 1986, using their school's Macintosh computers and laser printers to turn out resumes for classmates.

The little business quickly outgrew Chuang's dorm room, so the partners convinced their parents to cosign a $5,000 loan from a community bank in Cambridge. They leased a small office near campus and bought a laser printer.

The trio ran the business six days a week, running back and forth between the office and classes. They managed to gross $247,000 the first full year. It was too good to abandon on graduation but not big enough to support all three. In June 1987 Chuang, a lanky economics major and the only child of Taiwanese immigrant parents, volunteered to run the company in return for an 82% stake; his ex-partners would get 9% each and go their own ways - Kapner to work for Harvard Management Co., Wenjen to Los Angeles to work in high tech.

With the resume business as a base, Chuang started a temp agency providing Macintosh-literate students from nearby MIT, Harvard and Tufts. He renamed the firm MacTemps, Inc., and placed a small ad in a trade publication. "You didn't buy just any computer, don't hire just any tempt to use it," the ad read.

Few temp firms had Mac specialists back then. "Other agency temps didn't even know what a mouse was!" exclaims the amiable Chuang (pronounced chwong), now 32. So Chuang was able to charge a premium for his temps, $18 an hour, versus the $15 others charged. The phone rang off the hook anyway.

When you start a business without much capital, you have to count on reinvested profits. Chuang knew every penny he held on to was that much more money to reinvest. No frills? What about asking workers to bring their own pens to work. No private offices, no art on the walls. No company cars, only secondhand furniture. Chuang stays at $40-a-night Motels 6s when on the road - and encourages his employees to as well. His starting salary: $300 a week.

By the end of 1988 MacTemps had $1 million in sales and a pool of more than 300 temps. If the concept worked in Boston, why not elsewhere? Chuang took out more bank loans, totaling $320,000, and opened four more offices - in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles.

By 1990 MacTemps had sales of $9 million and about 2,200 temps, and Chuang realized that there were a lot of things about running a business he didn't know. "I didn't want to hire someone else to run the company," he says. "I wanted to do it myself." So he returned to Harvard as a full-time M.B.A. student while somehow continuing to run the business. By the time he graduated (with honors) in 1992, MacTemp revenues were $21 million and net operating profits were 11%of revenues. One of the original partners, Steven Kapner, who also graduated from Harvard Business School in 1992, returned to MacTemps four years later as chief financial officer.

As Windows stole market share from Macintosh, Chuang cross-trained his temps on Windows-based programs and added two new divisions: 1-800-NETWORK, which provides computer networking experts, and Portfolio, a pool of freelance graphic artists.

Last year MacTemps earned $6 million on revenues of $77 million. It has 220 employees, 7,000 temps and offices in 30 cities in 7 countries. Still financing expansion chiefly out of cash flow, Chuang has managed to hold on to 82% of the equity. He plans to open 20 more offices this year, when revenues should exceed $100 million. Bank loans have been paid off: MacTemps is debt free.

Chuang still pours back into the business every penny he can. Continuing to live in a working-class neighborhood of Boston, he drives the same Toyota Corolla he had while an undergraduate. Corporate headquarters - with a staff of only 20 - is in a second-floor loft just off the Harvard campus.

Employees are still asked to bring their own pens to work.