'We bumped into each other at a train station – now we're shaking up tech'

Two female tech pioneers have shared their story of a chance encounter at atrain stationthat changed their lives.

Louise Marsh and Sarah Wrixon are the power pair behind the innovative Fyio app. Louise, 54, was at Paddington train station when she noticed a fellow passenger struggling to find his ticket on his mobile.

She stepped in to help and made a casual comment about unreliable apps. The passenger was accompanied by his daughter, Sarah Wrixon, 60, an experienced public relations entrepreneur and founder of two PR firms, including Salix & Co, which she still manages today.

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"Lou and I met by happenstance," Sarah said. "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 explained to Sarah that she was creating a digital filing cabinet. At that time, she was in the early stages of developing Fyio which was designed to help people store, organise, and safeguard their most crucial documents.

Louise then asked Sarah what she did. "I told her I run a PR company," Sarah said. "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."

For Louise, Fyio had grown out of years working in the life insurance industry. She said: "I'd see the distress caused by disorganised documents sprawled across drawers or tucked away in the under-stair cupboard.

"But 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."

But starting from scratch was daunting. She said: "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 experience, became a sounding board and strategist after their chance meeting in 2019. She said: "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 candid about the challenges they've faced 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 fully 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 'cabinet' is divided into sections for different types of documents like work, school, and more.

School, medical, and pet documents can be uploaded quickly, shared securely, and can be set to expire after a chosen period. The platform boasts military-grade security, and not even Fyio's own team can access the data.

"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 laughs at the memory of how they met. She added: "If Dad had managed to find his ticket straight away, who knows? We might never have met."