e-Quality Learning

Year founded 2006
HQ Location North East England
Sector Technology
Staff count 85+
Turnover £6m
Founder and CEO Chris Quickfall says near-bankruptcy was the ultimate “business boot camp”, helping e-Quality Learning to become a “good business, that does good” generating £6m in revenue.
www.e-qualitylearning.com
The key to our success is that we have grown stronger after overcoming near failure.

Chris Quickfall

Founder & CEO

Aiming to make a difference

Founder and CEO Chris Quickfall grew-up in Newcastle during uncertain economic times. Despite the prevailing attitude that securing a job in the challenging local job market would be success enough, he wanted to make his mark on the world.

“I realised I wanted to build something that benefited society,” says Quickfall. “I wanted a good business and one that did good.”

With a mission to make the world a more inclusive place, e-Quality Learning delivers a range of products and services to help disabled students. The company delivers over 25,000 hours a year of specialist one-to-one training to students in receipt of Disabled Students’ Allowance.


Business teething pains

Quickfall was just 22 when he founded his company. Although trial-and-error is an inevitable element of entrepreneurship, he had to learn very quickly after some tough early experiences.

Taking out a large loan, e-Quality Learning took six months to secure its first customer. Quickfall says that he had to battle to convince suppliers to choose his company over more established service providers.

But due to what he describes as “typical start-up issues,” the business almost went bankrupt in 2007. Quickfall soon recovered the business, which then quickly grew to 14 staff. Then during the 2009 financial crisis, the business almost went bankrupt again.

“We had decided the business should grow without external funding, but unfortunately this meant I lost all of the money I’d invested in the business,” says Quickfall.

I wasn’t going to throw in the towel because I believed in myself and I didn’t want to let our clients down.

Chris Quickfall, e-Quality Learning


Firmly focused on success

Despite the challenges, Quickfall kept his entrepreneurial nerve. “I wasn’t going to throw in the towel because I believed in myself and I didn’t want to let our clients down,” he says. He used credit cards and other short-term debt facilities to fund the bounce back.

The business now has “a lot more financial acumen”, says Quickfall. More rigorous financial planning in particular has helped the company develop a firmer foundation to scale up more effectively.

Quickfall also highlights the importance of learning how best to invest in his people. Before, he focused on supporting underperforming staff. “But this meant I was often penalising the best members of the team,” he says.

He now prioritises his “ambitious” team. Employees performing well are rewarded with training and management time. “But if you’re not performing in the business, I won’t always be there to help you,” says Quickfall. This focused approach has resulted in the company constantly improving, helping it to generate its latest annual revenue of £6m.


Growing through business development

The company’s solid performance has fuelled various e-Quality Learning-related business initiatives. Most recently it has launched CognAssist, a service which provides cost-effective, online cognitive-profiling procedures to help people better understand how their brain functions.

The company has amassed evidence that shows its model can effectively profile the human brain’s complexity in relation to thinking and learning. This approach includes identifying hidden needs such as dyslexia. With an eye on growth, CognAssist is looking to expand into New Zealand and Australia.

“Our vision is that everyone who needs it in the future will have the opportunity to benefit from brain profiling,” Quickfall says, “helping to support their ambitions in life.”


Key Metrics

97%

Customer training satisfaction rating

30 minutes

Brain profiling time

20%+

Staff growth

Sources of capital
Supported By

Related Stories

MCCGLC
Relocating from Milan to London’s creative heartland may have been a personal and professional risk for MCCGLC’s founder and CEO Matteo Console Camprini, but the company’s diverse international culture has propelled it to new heights. Read more...
Lantum
Founder Melissa Morris set up Lantum with the ambition to help save the NHS £1bn in medical staff recruitment agency fees each year and, after rapid growth, has achieved over £10m of savings to date. Read more...
Gousto
Gousto has overcome numerous scale-up challenges thanks to its strong values, people-focused culture and unequivocal commitment to organic growth, confirming its prize as one of the UK’s most innovative food tech companies. Read more...
busuu
Founder and CEO Bernhard Niesner says that having the wrong culture created a “near-death experience” for busuu, but a concerted turnaround has put the mobile language-learning platform at the top of its class for the past few years. Read more...
Matrix APA
Founder and CEO Charlie Bradshaw started his product design and manufacturing business Matrix APA at 19, but over 20 years later he’s come a long way on his human and emotional capital journey, placing team values and cultural fit at the heart of his success. Read more...
The Lakes Distillery
When entrepreneurs Paul Currie and Gary Thornton with a vision for a world-class whisky distillery in Cumbria met expert retailer Nigel Mills, the scene was set to create a retail and export business, and award-winning tourist destination Read more...