‘We bumped into each other at a train station – now we’re shaking up tech’ | City & Business | Finance

Two female tech pioneers have revealed their remarkable tale of a chance meeting at a railway station that transformed their lives. Louise Marsh and Sarah Wrixon form the dynamic duo behind the groundbreaking Fyio app. Louise, 54, was at Paddington train station when she noticed a fellow passenger struggling to find his ticket on his mobile.

She offered assistance and made an offhand remark about unreliable apps. The traveller was accompanied by his daughter, Sarah Wrixon, 60, a seasoned public relations entrepreneur and founder of two PR companies, including Salix & Co, which she continues to run today.

“Lou and I met by happenstance,” Sarah revealed. “My dad had been to stay and he said he’d be perfectly fine to get himself on the Tube to Paddington – but it was clear to me it wasn’t going to be fine.”

“I was meant to be at a conference but decided to take him myself, and as we were queuing to get through the barrier, Dad was trying to find his ticket on his app. Suddenly, this voice pipes up saying: ‘An app’s got to work first time – I know, I’m building one.'”

Louise revealed to Sarah that she was developing a digital filing cabinet. At the time, she was in the initial phases of creating Fyio which was designed to help people store, organise, and safeguard their most crucial documents.

Louise then asked Sarah what she did for a living. “I told her I run a PR company,” Sarah recalled.

“She said: ‘I need some of that’ and thrust a card in my hand, and then kindly saw my dad onto the train. By the time I’d got back to the office, she’d found me on LinkedIn and that was that – we’ve been working together ever since.”

Louise, who had spent years in the life insurance industry, saw Fyio as a solution to the distress caused by disorganised documents. She explained: “It was when my husband left the armed forces after 25 years’ service that the distress caused by disorganised paperwork started in our own home. ‘Where’s my…’ started driving me mad.

“I wanted to create something that would change that and help him organise and take control of his paperwork and his new life.”

However, starting from scratch was a daunting task. She admitted: “I didn’t come from a tech background at all. I had to really do my research and work out how I was going to make this whole thing happen.”

Sarah, with her business acumen, became a sounding board and strategist after their chance encounter in 2019. She revealed: “Once we started working closely together, we worked through the vision, values and philosophy of the brand.

“We took quite a considered approach to not go too fast, which at that point was difficult because the tech world was on fire and everyone, investors especially, wanted things to happen at a gazillion miles per hour. But we stuck to our guns.”

She added: “If people were to trust an app to help them organise and protect their everyday paperwork and important personal documents, we had to be certain we were doing that properly and that the security was absolutely watertight.”

Both women are frank about the obstacles they’ve encountered entering a male-dominated sector later in life. Sarah said: “There aren’t that many that look like us, let’s put it that way. It’s been challenging – we don’t fit any kind of stereotype – but here we are with something incredibly exciting that’s going to change the paperwork paradigm.”

Louise added: “The fact that we’re two women, and we’re not young women, but we’ve taken on something and delivered a next-generation solution that’s being used by thousands of people and growing exponentially – I’m personally very proud of what we’ve done so far.”

Once the brand was completely developed, the two women officially became co-founders. Fyio now has users ranging from late teenagers to people in their eighties, including Sarah’s dad.

The digital ‘filing cabinet’ is separated into sections for different types of documents like work, school, and more.

Educational, medical, and pet documents can be uploaded swiftly, shared securely, and can be set to expire after a chosen period.

“The real ultimate vision is that Fyio would be a word almost in the English language – a bit like how WhatsApp is to instant messaging,” Sarah said.

Sarah still chuckles at the memory of their meeting. She added: “If Dad had managed to find his ticket straight away, who knows? We might never have met.”