Neil Tierney

Lightweight Medical was built around one brilliant innovation. During his final year Masters project at the Glasgow University and Mackintosh School of Art, Neil conceived the idea for a new type of baby incubator. The idea was patented and a couple of years after leaving university Neil and his co-founders fleshed out the business model and set out to get the product to market.

An innovative idea turned into a flourishing business: does it sound easy? Well it wasn’t! Even with an excellent team and a great product, getting the company off the ground was extremely hard work. For the first couple of years nobody was paid and everyone took on part time work including ski instructing at the local dry ski slope. The team never borrowed from the bank as the company’s founding ethos was to maintain a cash-positive bank balance. The business has been built pound by pound.

In 2004 Lightweight Medical won the Shell Livewire UK Young Entrepreneurs Award which gave a relatively young team a huge leg-up in terms of credibility. It is teamwork that Neil sees as the key to success: “We need more teams – rather than individuals – to get recognition! As an ex-rower I spent years working in close-knit teams and it’s pretty amazing what a small group of committed people can achieve. I take massive pride in typically only recruiting graduates and then seeing everyone pitch in to help them gain the necessary skills to become leaders in their field”.

Neil’s advice to anyone starting out in business would be: “Get a good skill-base under your belt at an appropriate level to your big idea. While you’re gaining the required skills, concentrate on creating a rock solid business plan and finding basic seed finance. One word of warning: if you can’t hack a 60-70 hour week in the first couple of years then don’t bother starting your own business”.