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Quinnergy was founded in 2017 by Craig Gallagher with £800 and a beaten-up van. It is now a multi-million-pound company with over 30 employees and a presence across the whole central belt of Scotland.
But how did it get there and where is the company headed today?
Quinnergy’s story, with its humble beginnings in an unremarkable town in Scotland, is a classic tale of perseverance, striving against the odds and pursuing a vision until it becomes a reality.
But before we can talk about the origin of Quinnergy we first need to begin with Craig, the man who started it all.
Craig's professional journey started when he joined a local company in Hamilton called E.J.Stiell.
Craig joined as an electrical apprentice, spending two years learning to become a professional electrician.
In his third year, Craig decided it was time for a change and decided to take up a position specialising in facilities and contract management.
In this position, Craig retrained as an engineer and spent 6 years looking after buildings, ensuring that all their facilities operated properly.
It was during this period as a facilities manager that Craig developed his skills in multi-disciplinary trades, having to take care of plumbing, electrical, air conditioning, etc.
Craig began to see the value of having a broad set of skills and how that could give a business an edge over those who stuck to one speciality.
The other big learning he took from his time in that job, was the importance of having a good system in place. Many trades businesses are still stuck in the dark ages, running their businesses off paper spreadsheets and disorganised forms.
In his facilities role, Craig saw how an efficient system could save a business masses of time, increase efficiency and prevent costly mistakes from occurring.
He may not have realised it yet, but the raw seeds of an idea were starting to form in the back of Craig’s mind. By prioritising the right systems and taking administration seriously, a business could easily stand out and leave behind the outdated dinosaurs of the industry.
Craig then went through a period of ups and downs, running a car garage for a number of years and then working as a self-employed electrician. This was until he was hit badly by the 2008 recession.
It was at this point that an opportunity arose to go to Afghanistan and work as an electrical engineer out there, during the conflict.
In the two and a half years Craig spent there, he was able to develop a strength and resilience that, down the line, would carry Quinnergy to future greatness.
Returning to the UK in 2012, Craig took a job as an offshore engineer, providing support services for electrical power companies. During this period, Craig spent long chunks of time working offshore while his family were left at home.
At the time he’d recently met his new partner Sarah and was starting to feel the distance, working away from home. Craig describes how “I wanted to set up a life with Sarah and have a strong house for the family” and to do that he needed to be back on the ground.
It was time to come home and so Craig left his job.
However, never someone to stand still, Craig began to put the early prototype that would become Quinnergy into formation. During the periods when Craig was back onshore, he would do jobs for letting agents, providing electrical services for their houses.
This was the real foundation of Quinnergy.
Craig could see that there was a large market for providing high-quality electrical safety certificates. At the time, the industry was full of unreliable, outdated electricians who could provide the service but struggled with the paperwork and the organisational side of operations.
Letting agencies were crying out for a reliable electrician who could get the job done to a high standard. Craig's partner Sarah, who worked in property, was able to provide the clients, it was just a matter of taking the opportunity.
And so the time had come. A £1000 loan from his mum, the purchase of a beaten-up Mercedes Vito and Quinnergy was up and running.
Check out Craigs interview on Live at the Hive to hear him talk about his story and the founding of Quinnergy.
There are two questions people always ask when they first come across Quinnergy, where does the name come from and why the colour green?
Craig has always been a man who cares about his family, and that sense of kinship is something tangible that can be felt throughout the company. It is at the heart of what makes Quinnergy tick.
When deciding on the name Craig wanted to find something that stayed true to that family feel and so named it after his son Quin. The name combines Craig's love for his son with his own passion and energy while operating in a market that works alongside the energy industry.
The colour too, speaks of trust, wealth and a promise to support a green and sustainable future.
But in the beginning Quinnergy’s future seemed to be a very delicate thing.
Craig describes the early years as some of the toughest he’s experienced. Money was short and despite the steady stream of work, Craig was struggling to make ends meet.
Despite the struggle, he knew that if he could just hold on things would work out, because crucially, there was demand for his services.
Very quickly Craig established a reputation as someone who was reliable and efficient, the very traits that the letting agencies and housing associations were after.
It didn’t take long before Sarah’s letting agent, Karen Letin, saw what Craig was doing and asked if they could use him for all their safety certificates.
This was a significant coup, but already Craig was starting to feel the pressure of managing all that admin and it weighed heavy.
“I knew straight away that admin was what was holding all the other contractors back, and was holding me back… Admin is where this is - 50% is us out doing the practical 50% on admin”.
With this understanding, Craig made a bold move and just three weeks into starting work, he hired Amy Grimison.
Amy’s job was to run and manage all the admin and deal with the incoming leads. From an experience background, she was perfect, having worked for Sarah’s letting company and able to handle those letting leads.
Of course, this came with an expense and in the first few months, there was barely enough money to pay Amy let alone for Craig to take a salary for himself.
But they stuck with it.
After six months, just about getting by, chasing leads and working long hours, things began to snowball in the right direction.
Where before, Craig was having to go out to letting agents and convince them why Quinnergy was the company they needed, things flipped and new leads began to approach him.
Craig considers this to be the turning point. Up until then, it’d been hard to think of Quinnergy as a fully formed company, but now the tide was turning.
It felt as if there was a shift, with a new age of letting agents coming to the fore. They could see the value in having contractors who could do it all, with experience in plumbing, electrical and other areas.
That level of professionalism was able to shine through and Quinnergy was able to grow.
Craig speaks very proudly of the moment when they could, at last, buy their own van and print the Quinnergy logo on the side. It was at that point that he really felt like they’d made it, that this was the beginning of the Quinergy we see today.
You can hear Craig talk about his journey and other interest points in his Q&A on the Quinnergy YouTube channel.
In 2024 Quinnergy are the go-to provider for all landlord safety and compliance certificates across central Scotland.
Their proposition is simple but incredibly valuable.
For anyone who owns and rents properties such as landlords, letting agencies and housing associations, Quinnergy makes it incredibly easy to get all their compliance certificates sorted.
Rather than a property agency needing to get in an electrician on one day and a plumber on another with all the paperwork that comes with it, Quinnergy will do it all in one simple visit.
Quinnergy are able to deliver high standards at affordable prices without the added hassle.
They’ve also made it incredibly easy for new accounts to sign up with a professional website and digital enquiry form.
Today Quinnergy’s proposition is broader than ever with annual boiler and other service packages also available to landlords, businesses and homeowners.
Since those early days 7 years ago, Quinnergy has grown almost unrecognisably, now employing more than 30 staff and bringing in a turnover that has increased to over 1 million pounds - a 10 times increase in 7 years.
But that is not the end of Quinnergy’s ambition.
Craig and the team want to take Quinnergy to the top and turn it into the UK’s largest and most trusted provider of safety compliance certificates nationwide.
As part of this ambition, Quinnergy are investing heavily in their admin processes and operations.
Firstly they’ve brought on board Rob Duncan, an expert on business growth and driving efficiencies. He is helping to drive change and is looking at ways the company can further develop.
While Craig was seminal in the creation of Quinnergy, the future of the company is embodied by Rob.
Rob has an interesting background.
In his early years, Rob worked in sales and operations, but it was in his role as Operations Manager at TravelNest that he really established himself.
TravelNext is a company that allows its users to manage their rented properties. During the 17 months Rob spent there, he was able to grow the business from 120 listed properties to 7,200 and increased the estimated annual turnover from £50K to £3 million.
An impressive achievement, even more so given it was done in less than a year and a half. However, Rob has always been ambitious about pursuing his own business ventures, and so, after a period of working in finance, Rob decided to set up his own company.
Enter the Smoked Thistle.
Drawing inspiration from American smoked BBQ food, Rob and his business partner Blair Armstrong-Payne set up The Smoked Thistle, a mobile catering firm.
The business ran for a bit over 2 years, serving customers with local ingredients and delivering high-quality cuisine.
Despite the business eventually having to close due to rising costs, Rob was able to learn a lot of crucial lessons about managing and growing a business, key learnings that he’s now taking into his role at Quinnergy.
As director of operations, Rob is driving the team at Quinnergy to make the next step up and put in place the structures necessary to let the company grow at scale. Rob’s ambition and his unique set of skills are set to turbocharge Quinnergy’s development.
The second investment Quinnergy have made has been in new software partners, Payaca.
Payaca are bringing in a totally new system, providing fully optimised quoting, invoicing and team management features throughout the whole company.
Currently, Quinnergy has to coordinate and manage a large team of field staff across multiple projects - a resource-heavy process. This is done with a large admin team, but if they want to scale, they need a system that can support them.
With Payaca everything will be run through one centralised system, reducing confusion and wasted time and connecting the dots between admin and field staff.
This is being delivered by Payaca’s team of tech engineers and system specialists, Matt Franklin and Luke Howells.
Matt and Luke have already completed a full assessment of Quinnergy’s current operations and have built out a fully optimised new system.
With this, Payaca are also introducing service capabilities.
One of Quinnergy’s goals is to expand and improve how they deliver repeat services.
Quinnergy are already providing their customers with the option to sign up for repeat subscriptions, such as monthly or yearly boiler and electrical services.
With Payaca, delivering this service will be far easier. Quinnergy can now give its clients access to a user-friendly portal where the end client can get real-time information about any ongoing work with Quinnergy.
For the property agents, landlords and homeowners who are signed up to these plans, they will be able to check the status of their projects and see a full history of all their past quotes, invoices, certificates and bookings, all in one place.
The client portal makes it easy for Quinnergy to manage its relationships with its customers, but also for the customer to communicate with Quinnergy
Payaca are also introducing a full database of service forms which can be accessed and filled out very quickly while the field agents are on-site. These will then be instantly saved and stored alongside the quotes, invoices and other documents associated with that customer.
This will save time for agents in the field by making these forms much easier to complete, but also save the admin staff time by reducing time spent organising and processing completed forms and matching them up to the right other documents.
Adopting a new way of running a business can be challenging, but credit to Craig and Rob, by embracing and driving this new solution forward, they’ve removed the ceiling from Quinnergy’s growth potential.
With a more efficient and joined-up business, Quinnergy will be able to take on more work without taking on more admin staff and are also protecting the company from mismanagement by using this highly organised and optimised system.
With Payaca’s help Quinnergy will save hours of wasted time and generate significant efficiency savings.
Rob is excited about the high potential of this new partnership explaining that,
“I think we can achieve 40% efficiency savings with you guys quite quickly”.
The end result is going to be a smoother and less stressful experience for the end clients. For those businesses and individuals Quinnergy serves, they will receive a new level of customer support and transparency that they haven’t experienced before.
Payaca is not only making life easier for the whole team at Quinnergy but for those they are serving too.
With this new partnership, Quinnergy is setting the standards for the industry and is soon to become the dominant force across the whole of the UK.
Listen to Matt, Craig and Rob discussing the future of Quinnergy with Payaca in this interview on the Payaca YouTube channel.
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