How a delay at Paddington brought two women together to build a secure app changing the way people manage paperwork.
When Louise Marsh spotted a man fumbling for his ticket at Paddington station, she couldn’t have known that her quick comment about unreliable apps would set the course for a new business venture.
The 54-year-old, then deep in the early stages of creating Fyio – a digital filing cabinet designed to store and protect personal documents – had no idea she was talking to the father of seasoned PR entrepreneur Sarah Wrixon.
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Within minutes, she and Sarah, 60, were swapping business cards. By the time Sarah returned to her office, Louise had already found her on LinkedIn. The rest, as they say, is history.
Launched in 2019, Fyio is now a secure platform used by people of all ages, from teenagers to pensioners.
Its appeal lies in simplicity: each user has a digital “cabinet” divided into sections for work, school, health, pets and more.
Documents can be uploaded in seconds, shared securely, and even set to expire.
Importantly, the app’s military-grade encryption means even the Fyio team can’t access user data.
For Louise, the idea grew from her career in life insurance and her own home life, when endless piles of paperwork after her husband’s military service became overwhelming.
“I wanted to create something that would help him organise and take control of his paperwork and his new life,” she said.
With Sarah’s decades of business experience, the two took a considered approach to developing Fyio. “If people were going to trust us with their most important documents, the security had to be watertight,” Sarah explained.
They spent months refining user experience through beta testing, determined to make paperwork management not just secure, but surprisingly enjoyable.
Both admit breaking into the tech world later in life – and as women – hasn’t been easy. “There aren’t that many that look like us,” Sarah said.
Louise added: “The fact that we’re two women, and not young women, who have delivered a next-generation solution makes me very proud.”
Today, Fyio is gaining momentum, with users growing exponentially and ambitions stretching far beyond. Sarah has a clear vision: “We want Fyio to be as synonymous with document storage as WhatsApp is with instant messaging.”
Reflecting on their serendipitous meeting, Sarah laughs: “If Dad had managed to find his ticket straight away, who knows? We might never have met.”
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