Aman Chahal, co-founder of TaperedPlus on building a business in construction

As part of Bdaily’s feature week investigating entrepreneurship, I hear from Aman Chahal, co-founder of Stockton on Tees based TaperedPlus.

TaperedPlus specializes in designing and supplying flat roofing designs and insulation systems across multiple sectors, using innovative design technology and roofing materials to ensure high quality performance.

It has been involved in several prestigious construction projects, involving Bristol Airport, Canterbury Christ Church University, and the Mercedes F1 AMG operations facility. Being truly independent, TaperedPlus offers the correct insulants project by project and has the ability to mix product types when the benefits of two or more insulants are required.

Born into a family of first generation migrants from India, Aman’s parents worked incredibly hard to provide him with opportunities they never had. Aman said, “my mum worked two or three jobs, and for 25 years was on the nightshift at the KP Crisp factory in Billingham, and my father worked 6 days a week, every week, at Darchem engineering for a similar period of time.

“Both my parents worked hard and saved enough money to put both me and my sister through university, providing us with the life chances they never had.”

Aman certainly didn’t squander the opportunities their hard work provided him, gaining a degree in Information Management at Leeds University, an MSc in International Management at University of Teesside, and a Post Graduate Diploma in E-Commerce at the University of Sunderland.

After leaving University, Aman had a short spell as a technical sales manager for a construction tools company before joining structural insulation specialists Kingspan, where he rose to become its National Flat Roofing Business Development Manager.

While at Kingspan, he met Robert Vass, who worked his way up to Flat Roofing Product Manager. The pair subsequently developed a mutual respect for each other’s abilities and when Kingspan acquired one of the last major independent tapered roofing businesses, they saw a gap in the market and the opportunity to establish TaperedPlus.

“Both our respective parents backed us with £40,000 each, we put in £60k and also managed to attract some financing,” he said. “We initially expected to at least recoup our Kingspan wages and in the first year targeted £500,000 turnover. By six months we achieved £17,000 but by the end of the first year we exceeded our own predictions with a £817,000 turnover.

“Since then, TaperedPlus’ annual turnover has practically doubled each year. Despite this, it proved to be a stressful and uncertain time. With the business sucking up all available finance, we survived on an annual income of £10,000 for the first two years.”

In speaking to entrepreneurs throughout this feature week, I have noticed a recurring theme in the advice they offer to would-be-entrepreneurs. That theme being that curiosity and resilience pays dividends.

Aman told me to, “stay hungry, maintain high standards and keep learning. Always work with humility and courage in order to become tomorrow’s leader, today. One hack that I wished I’d learnt early on was to understand the concept of accountability, allowing me to manage time better and increase productivity, to keep on track and increase focus. It also helps to ignore the noise!”

These themes have also always been prevalent in the entrepreneurs they look up to. When I asked Aman which entrepreneurs inspired him, he said, “although a little outdated now, the late Jack Welch was chair and chief executive of General Electric between 1981 and 2001.

“Implementing his vision for quick growth in times of economic slowdown, he was named Manager of the Century by Fortune in 1999. A great leader of his time, his work around service and accountability still holds water.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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