Meet the friends who turned pub garden idea into award-winning business in record time

But that is exactly the journey that Dave Stanger and Chris Frankland have been on, culminating in their stone supplier company Tectonix winning in the Best Business Start-Up category at the recent Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards.

Next year promises to be even more exciting for the pair, whose forthcoming projects include supplying a new memorial garden for Queen Elizabeth II in Regent’s Park with stone from Yorkshire.

Dave and Chris had been long-standing colleagues at Elland-based Marshalls, a stone product giant which is a FTSE 250 company, with more than 2,000 employees and annual revenues that run into the hundreds of millions of pounds.

Dave says of the initial conversation that led to their business idea: “It was a day after work. We were in the senior team of a PLC but for me personally, I like to be with customers. Chris has a passion for stone and sourcing.

"It didn’t start as a conversation of, ‘Do you want to start a business?’ It was more, ‘How are you feeling?’ We felt similarly and it grew into ‘What do you reckon?’”

They began to look into the idea more seriously and work out whether they could make the numbers work.

Chris says: “We were on a drive somewhere and while Dave drove, I sat in his passenger seat with my daughter’s school laptop typing out how we might be able to get to break even. That was almost the start – making it up as we went along.”

After serving their notice periods, the business officially launched in September 2022 based from an office in Morley.

Chris explains: “We kind of started at home and built our range of products from my front room with samples sent from across the world.

"We built our range literally sat there. But both Dave and I are not really workers from home and we wanted our own space. It gave us permanence, an identity and a bit of togetherness.

"We chose Morley because it was virtually halfway between where we were living at the time in Boston Spa and Halifax.”

They now have a team of five and say learning how to run a business after previously being part of a major operation has been an intense experience.

Dave says: “We took a couple of challenging jobs but we needed to learn everything again. We had been marketing and sales and all of sudden you are also credit control, logistics, management, operations.”

When asked what their USP is in a competitive industry, the pair say relationships are key.

Dave says: “To some degree a product is a product but we are product and client-centric. We want to provide a solution rather than just supply a product. We neutrally find the right solutions for the right job.”

Chris adds: “Where I think we are slightly different is we react more quickly. We haven’t got the whistles and bells of a lot of our competitors with massive marketing budgets, infrastructure behind them and a long history. But we are five of us sat in the same office and when a client sends us in a quote, we can turn that around almost immediately.

"If somebody wants a sample, we are sending it out that day or we taking it down to London on the train or hand-delivering by car. In our industry that stuff matters.

"A quantity surveyor or an estimator is under a lot of time pressure and they need to get this one element of a large project turned around quickly. It seems like a lame USP that we can help them do that, but from a service-led and relationship perspective, it really does matter.”

While the business is still in its infancy, it has already been involved in supplying stone to some major projects including work outside the Bank of England in London and the new One City Park development in Bradford.

Dave says of the latter: "We were engaged on a cost-saving exercise and it grew arms and legs from there. It went from a bit of consultancy advice to buying and delivering for them. That was really cool.

"We sourced from Italy, Portugal and the UK and a local logistics firm in Bradford helped with the storage and delivery. It was a nice local team pulling it together for them.”

While most of its work is on commercial projects, Tectonix is also involved with high-end home renovation work.

Dave says the company’s approach is based on finding the right product to match what each customer needs.

“It is a bit like if you know you want a car, a salesman will help match you to the right one for what you want it to do. You work through a specification as well as a supply and a cost.”

One big challenge for the fledgling business has been shipping delays in the Red Sea caused by Houthi rebel attacks. The pair have increasingly focused on importing stone from Europe to reduce the challenge to their business.

Chris says: "Our product is big and heavy, you don’t get a lot of it in a container. It did have a massive impact at the start of this year. We had to react massively quickly.”

Dave adds that going into business together has proved to be full of unexpected challenges.

“It has been excitingly turbulent because you are learning so many new things. We’ve been friends but we have never worked hand in glove before. We’ve understood each others’ strengths and weaknesses and tried to shape around it rather than fight against it. One of the biggest learning curves is running a business, going out and selling is one thing but having the whole thing to manage is another.”

Chris adds: “When you work for a PLC, there is an army of people behind you who do the back end – accounting systems, compliance, policy through to making the coffee and hoovering up. We had to learn the back end quickly.”

Dave adds the pair were “extremely proud” to have been recognised at the recent Excellence in Business Awards.

"Two and a half years ago, Tectonix was just an idea. This achievement and how far we’ve come is a testament to the hard work of our team and the incredible support we’ve received from so many people along our journey.”