Airport work helped Surf Box take off
Tom Marry and Declan Lennon have built up the Surf Box company selling high-end internet kiosks to hotels and airports
Thursday March 05 2009
TOM Marry and Declan Lennon know how it feels to lose your job, pick yourself up and create a successful company. The two UCD engineering graduates did just that five years ago when Infoscore, a German software company with operations in Kilkenny, pulled out of Ireland.
Now they are working together to help their own company withstand the recession.
The two men had known one another in college in the early 1990s but lost touch as they worked overseas during the rest of the decade.
They met again at a job interview in Kilkenny where they were both hired to join Infoscore. The friendship blossomed over the next four years until Infoscore's closure.
Ideas
Casting round for ideas, Tom came up with the idea of building coin-operated internet kiosks while reading a newspaper article on the subject. Declan, who is more technically savvy, liked the idea and they began building prototypes in Tom's garden shed.
"The trigger was there in that I knew the stability was ending. The question was do I move back to Dublin for a well-paid job or do I do something on my own?" Tom says.
He has never regretted the decision to co-found Surf Box and sell the high-end internet kiosks to hotels and airports.
The two men, who now employ three others, have since managed to place about 350 terminals in hotels around the country and another 100 in Irish airports. Surf Box made hay while the Celtic Tiger roared, beating Eircom and six other companies to win the tender for Dublin airport.
"That was a highlight. It was very hard work. We spent six weeks on the tender," remembers Tom in an interview in Surf Box's offices in picturesque Thomastown on the River Nore.
Now they hope that the move into airports will sustain them in the hard days ahead. The domestic hotel industry has definitely slowed, they say.
Surf Box's sales in the hotel sector were flat over the past 12 months despite installing new terminals. The company already dominates the local airport sector.
To expand, Surf Box will have to move abroad and cut costs at home. Their biggest focus is European airports. In the UK they are neck-and-neck with one other company to supply a regional airport.
In April, the two entrepreneurs will travel to Porto in Portugal for a European aviation trade fair where they will seek to convince other airport operators to buy their services.
The two men are big fans of trade shows. It was a display at the Irish Hotels Federation's annual meeting that gave them their first break and they are hoping that the Porto show will help catapult them into the next league.
They are fulsome in their praise for both Kilkenny County Enterprise Board and Enterprise Ireland which have helped fund research and appearances at trade shows without giving any direct grants.
"The organs of the State work effectively," says Tom. "We'd have no complaints." They also praise a mentor supplied by the Enterprise Board, who worked in the drinks industry, selling alcohol into airports. "That was great. He really helped."
Despite the expansion plans, the two remain wary about spending right now. Surf Box doubled the number of terminals every year since the company started but Tom and Declan don't see that happening again this year.
"We've become more careful with our spending," says Declan. The company bought space in Thomastown rather than 15km-distant Kilkenny to save money and have recently switched electricity suppliers, moving to Bord Gais from the ESB.
Special cards
Surf Box has also begun using special cards to bulk buy diesel at filling stations to cut down on travel costs for the engineers who often travel long distances to service the company's terminals around the country.
Declan has also begun selling old hardware on eBay although he remains sceptical about whether this will be worth his time.
The collapse of sterling over the last few months has helped the company, making computers sourced in the UK much cheaper but the biggest difference has been the tightening of credit.
"Whereas we might have got credit by telephone last year, we are now seeing a thoughtful and more difficult conversation," says Tom. "It's more realistic. They are looking for directors to match funds."
The important thing today is to show banks that you can come in on budget, he adds. Tom and Declan are not sure whether they would have got the funding they needed if they were setting up Surf Box today.
"I don't think we'd have been given the money but then I don't really know," says Tom. "In that sense we were definitely lucky that the recession came early for us."
- Thomas Molloy
