Brian Wholey got really fed up with thieves and illegal immigrants continually breaking into the trailers of his haulage business. So he looked around for protection for his curtain-sided trailers but failed to find anything adequate.
Fortunately, he had previously worked as an electrical engineer for General Motors, and he remembered some devices for sending a pulse down a line to test a connection’s integrity. So he built his own alarm.
That is the point in 2001 at which he set up the company, called TISS, and Alex McCracken, who had been a management consultant with Price Waterhouse Coopers, came on board. As Mr McCracken puts it, the company had engineering and sales competence, and needed help with finance and planning.
Mr McCracken prepared a business plan, helped with the patent application, raised £60,000 from family and friends and chose a supplier to make the device. After six months, as the business got going, it raised £250,000 from venture capitalists just as haulage companies started taking an interest in the device.
The market was clear. Theft from lorries had reached £600m a year in the UK and illegal immigrants had increasingly become a menace, jumping on to lorries entering the country from abroad.
“It was pretty easy to get hauliers on board for a trial, but pretty difficult to get them to buy,” Mr McCracken said.
That was because in the main TISS targeted larger companies, which tended to have high-value loads, but required new products to be tested and approved by several different business heads, sometimes right up to board level – all of which took time.
Even when a large customer finally approved the purchase they said “we’ll put it into next year’s budget”.
TISS persuaded its customers to put some of the purchase money up front. This cashflow, coupled with putting suppliers on a 30 to 60-day payment, kept the funding requirement low.
Product marketing looked after itself after a set of spectacular initial sales orders. One, with Unitruc, which carries the Ferrari Formula One team around, emphasised the attractiveness of the product to companies with high-value loads. And another was NorfolkLine, which operates about 5,000 vehicles.
“People always ask why we didn’t get Eddie Stobart. But he runs pretty low-value loads within the UK and we were after hauliers like Wincanton and Excel which carry really valuable loads like drugs and clothes all over Europe,” Mr McCracken said.
Now TISS’s customers also include Tesco, Littlewoods and Argos. Companies like that do not pay up front, said Mr McCracken. Fortunately the promises for “the following year’s budget” are now working through and this year’s turnover is likely to be £1m, against £300,000 last year.
It also helps that TISS focuses on sales, marketing and innovation – outsourcing everything else to keep costs to a minimum. Half its staff are part-timers to add even greater flexibility.
TISS has also actively courted public grants and attention. It secured a grant of £150,000 from the government’s Smart awards for technology. It has also been awarded the E-Synergy Technology of the Year and Siemens’ Best New Product.
Last month, the company was runner-up in the HSBC Start-Up Stars competition which, in addition to the publicity, produces a £5,000 cheque.
The ideas side of the business is also hard at work. The product range has already been extended to a slash-proof Kevlar lorry curtain; software that allows a haulage company to track its trailers via GPS satellites; text message alerts to notify drivers of an illegal entry and software allowing security managers to turn alarms on and off from remote computers.
It has begun exporting to Holland – where an agent has just been appointed – Germany, France and even Australia (via its GPS tracking partner), with regular inquiries coming in through the website. There are 115m trailers worldwide, so the potential market is huge.
Names: Brian Wholey, Ryan Wholey, Alex McCracken
Company: TISS
Sector: security
Founded: 2001
Start-up funds: £60,000 + £250,000
Staff: 4 full-time, 5 part-time
Turnover: £1m
www.tissltd.com
