Six months after shattering his elbow in a high-speed speedboat accident, Rod Wood says his Perth digital wide format trade-only printer Large Format Media is seeing solid growth and should double turnover in the next year.
Wood sold his offset business in 2012 and opened the start-up company a year ago to fill a ‘gap in the market’. He says the business met its $800,000 annual turnover target for first year, and is now profitable and gaining new clients and volumes.
Wood is aiming for $1.6m this year and $2m the year after.
“It took a while to build confidence with clients – initially they were sending small jobs to test the waters but now they’ve seen how good our quality and turnaround are they’re sending bigger jobs,” he says.
“Earlier $500 was a big job for us but now we have jobs worth thousands coming in every day.”
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Wood says there has been significant growth from clients in the signage industry that only have smaller roll-to-roll machines and can’t handle higher volumes or flatbed jobs.
He says the company has reached its 150 client target and now aims to gain bigger ones with its proven production and quality abilities.
The clients include some Eastern States firms that outsource mostly sporadic emergency work on tight deadlines.
Large Format Media has not bought any significant new equipment since its Roland DG Soljet Pro4 XF-640 install last October and has kept capacity at about 65 per cent due to better efficiencies through workflow changes. The company says that leaves room for future growth at its Booragoon factory.
“Since business has grown so quickly we’ve developed good habits to deal with being busy and are always getting more efficient as we go,” Wood says.
He says the company is in the process of hiring a new assistant manager, bringing its staff total to seven, who would focus on running the day-to-day production, while Wood looks more at big-picture strategic planning.
A big focus of the company going forward is to inform clients of what Large Format Media can do for them so they can explain it to their own clients.
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Wood says he is recovery faster than doctors expected from his 110kph speedboat crash last November where he broke his elbow into 50 pieces, cracked his shoulder blade, tore ligaments and bone off his knee, and fractured his shin and heel.
He says he will go under the knife again on Friday to remove screws and one of the three plates in his elbow and continue repairs to his knee, and will need more shoulder surgery soon.
“It was a bit of a hiccup for business in the four weeks after, particularly as we had some new staff getting up to speed, so we lost of focus but I was back working full time after that and everything got back on track,” he says.
Wood got behind the wheel of a speedboat under race conditions for the first time two weeks ago and managed to finish second despite his injuries.
“There was a meet between surgeries and I thought I’d give it a go and take it gentle, but then the greet light came on and away we went,” he says.
“The accident has taught me to go slower around corners and not push so hard, and I’m actually racing better as a result.”
Other than the XF-640, Large Format Media sports a SwissQPrint Impala, Miller Weldmaster, Graphtec FC8000 cutting plotter, Tekcel CNC router and a PrintCost MIS.
Wood says while he would like to but a new cutter when it was affordable, there are no plans to buy new equipment, though he would consider diversifying into other areas if business warranted it.
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