The chill wind blowing through the technology industry has done nothing to hinder the expansion of a dynamic Carlow-based company. Technology Sales Leads, which was founded two years ago with a staff of two, now employs 45 and has just recorded an increase in sales of 611 per cent.
If anything, says the company's 29year-old managing director Mike Kelly, the slowdown in the sector has led to an increase in demand for TSL's services.
Mr Kelly, a Dubliner, and a friend from Boston, Mr David English (28), established the enterprise just two years ago at the innovation centre at Carlow Institute of Technology. Now the company operates from a new building on Burrin Street.
TSL does the groundwork in finding customers for its worldwide client base that includes Fineos, Marrakech and IBM. It finds out what those customers want to buy and reports back to the clients, whose sales teams move in to finalise the deals. They say no other Irish firm is providing this service.
The company also has an office in Boston, run by Mr English, and plans to establish a base in Britain. Agents are being appointed in Israel and India.
Sales of more than a million euros were achieved in the financial year just ended, a 611 per cent increase on the company's first year of operation, and a further tripling of growth is expected in the coming 12 months.
TSL's success was based on finding a niche service few other companies were providing, Mr Kelly says. He and Mr English got the idea while working together for a company providing a similar service in the United States.
The prospect of recession in the industry has helped secure extra business for TSL, as companies accustomed to finding markets without much effort suddenly find themselves looking for new ways to generate sales.
Many of the staff are graduates of Waterford and Carlow institutes of technology. They receive six months' training on taking up positions with the TSL, which has realised its growth so far without venture capital. A "small degree" of BES funding was received from Davy Stockbrokers and BDO Simpson Xavier.
"There's a lot of money invested in training, but it's all being generated from our own profits," says the affable Mr Kelly. So is he the latest millionaire entrepreneur? "Not at all. Nothing has changed. I'm still renting where I live." Even house prices in Carlow, however, might not prove daunting to him for much longer.
Technology Sales Leads has a wwebsite at www.tsleads.co