essensys: An Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Story

Published on January 26, 2016 - By Jo Meunier (née Disney)

The flexible workspace sector certainly isn’t short of unusual, amusing, or downright quirky founding stories.

Yet the most inspirational series of events must surely belong to Mark Furness, co-founder and CEO of essensys, who – shortly before setting up the fast-growing IT company in 2006 – was sleeping on a friend’s sofa and selling takeaway food for a living.

It’s probably not what you’d expect from a firm that’s just announced its expansion into the US, nor one that has been labelled ‘one to watch’ by illustrious IT group, Gartner.

So if you don’t know the story behind essensys, this BBC article makes fascinating reading.

It tells the story of how essensys – which today employs 90 people and counts an annual turnover of more than £12m – started life at the hands of someone with barely two coins to rub together. Back then, co-founder Mark had little more than a dream. Yet through sheer determination, natural salesmanship and a desire to do things his way, he turned his startup ideas into reality alongside co-founders Bryn Sadler and Barry Clark.

Today, 10 years later, essensys is now a leading supplier of automated IT services to the flexible workspace sector, with 6,000 clients in the UK and 250 in the US, where it has been operating for just six months.

Read the fascinating story of essensys here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35370838