John Kent, now 59, knew early on that being an employee was never going to cut it for him. He enjoyed the excitement of his first role in sales at a computer firm and continued to prove his worth when he moved to a warehouse storage equipment manufacturer. "Within a year I was the best-performing salesman." But Kent wasn't satisfied: he needed to start a business himself.
The opportunity came with the launch of the Psion Organiser, a British-made handheld computer. Everyone at the time was saying that it was the replacement for the Filofax. Kent noticed that "people put their Filofaxes in nice leather cases" and realised they'd want to do the same with their Psions.
In 1988 Kent sourced 250 leather cases from India and approached a friend he knew who worked for Psion. "They agreed to take the cases and when they sold out they soon wanted more." Soon Kent was supplying thousands and selling them in retailers such as Dixons. The sales gave him the money to quit his job and fund a new project with Psion.
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He hired a programmer and they began working on new software for the Psion Organiser. "From my time as a quantity surveyor, I knew that a lot of people in the property industry relied on printed sheets to make the calculations needed to value a property."
Kent reckoned there would be a lot of demand for a program that could do that for them. Then in 1993 he received a phone call that would take him in a different direction altogether.
A British Airways ground crew manager wanted to know how to manage the fleet of staff vehicles at Gatwick Airport. "He was struggling. Staff would hide the keys of the newest, cleanest vehicles so that nobody else could use them. Vehicles were being treated badly because there was no accountability."
Kent contacted a friend who worked in the electronics industry. Their solution was an "intelligent key cabinet" that would keep track of which employee had requested the key. The keys themselves would be attached to a traceable key fob.
British Airways liked the idea and ordered 12 of the cabinets. That was more than Kent's new company, Traka, could afford to build and he had to look for funding. He managed to get £80,000 from a bank on the condition that he must also find an angel investor.
With the money in place, he built the cabinets. They proved a hit with British Airways "as greater fleet efficiency meant they needed fewer vehicles" and the airline soon ordered more for its Heathrow operation. Kent saw the huge potential "every business uses keys" but knew that "nobody was familiar with the product". The only way to sell was to slog round trade fairs and stage demonstrations.
It worked. Contracts with some large blue-chip firms and government agencies saw sales hit £5m in 2000. Kent reinvested the proceeds, developing new tracking products, such as a key that can let a range of drivers operate different forklift trucks but still identify each driver and grant different levels of access depending on the licences they hold.
In 2008 Kent was able to buy out his angel investor and now has full control of Traka. With sales of £9m in 2011, Kent will always be grateful for that call in 1993.
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