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December 6, 2004

Safe keeping | A chat with D. Matthew Quinlan, president of FileSavers BMRC Inc. in Kennebunk.

By Dorothy Ogrodowczyk
Founded: September 2003
Revenues, 2003: $58,850
Projected revenues, 2004: $200,000
Address: 8 Commerce Dr., Kennebunk
Phone: 467-9111
Web: www.filesaversbmrc.com

Describe what your company does.
FileSavers provides customers with professional records management services designed to regain space, meet disaster recovery requirements and reduce staff time. We provide onsite services to [implement] a record management system, and we help maintain the system onsite. We can help clients convert paper files to digital files with our scanning service. We also provide offsite archiving services at our record center in Kennebunk, and we offer certified destruction services, where old files are pulped, shredded and recycled.

Who are your typical clients?
Our clients are mostly hospitals, but also law offices and small to medium-sized businesses.

How many employees do you have?
We have three full-time employees, including me. In the past we've brought on temporary help as necessary.

Describe your company in three words.
Aggressive, ethical and customer-oriented.

When did you get the idea?
I worked for years at a small records management company in Massachusetts. The company was acquired by a large national company, where customers were not a priority. They trapped customers by requiring long-term contracts and making clients pay astronomical termination fees. That was not the way I learned to attract and keep customers. I decided to start my own company and get customers with service rather than contractual obligation.

What was the biggest challenge going from idea to reality?
The biggest challenge was finding a proper location and property. We need to deliver to customers quickly and inexpensively, so we have to be local. Our core market is from Portland to Portsmouth, N.H., so a record center in Kennebunk is perfect. It took eight months of searching.

How did you finance the launch of your business, and what did it cost?
Our business startup cost was approximately $700,000. The record center in Kennebunk accounted for approximately $650,000 of the cost. We financed it with our own capital and with a business loan from Citizens Bank.

What have you achieved since then?
At this point, we have about 2,500 boxes at our record center and we also store approximately 1,000 linear feet of X-ray files from various hospitals. We've been able to sign up 22 customers, including 15 major hospitals throughout New England, from Massachusetts General Hospital [in Boston] to Mercy Hospital in Portland.

What are your plans for growth?
Our goal is to become the premier record management company in the southern seacoast Maine area. We'd also like to bring in some more small to medium-sized businesses and legal offices as clients.

What resources have proven most useful?
We interview customers to find out how their companies and record management needs have evolved, so we know what new services we need to add in the future. Our clients fill out a questionnaire every six months.

Describe a mistake you've made in your business and what you learned from it.
When we first started, we had a lot of interest in onsite work. We neglected to market ourselves and our archive service. We didn't keep filling the pipeline.

If you were given $500,000 toward your business, what would you do with it?
We'd build a large vault with a dry fire suppression system for storage. It's the best way to store backup tape and computer disks, which is a growing part of our business. Right now, we only have a 6' x 6' x 7' vault to store material.

So companies save tons of paperwork. Are you yourself a pack rat?
Yes, I am pack rat, unfortunately. My office is definitely not as organized as I would like it to be. I'm better at organizing others' paperwork than my own.

New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to dorothyo@mainebiz.biz.

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