TDK Technologies 10 Year Anniversary

April 4, 2011 marked TDK Technologies' 10th anniversary in business. According to the Small Business Administration, more than 2/3 of small businesses fail within 10 years. TDK has not only survived but prospered, showing rapid growth during those 10 years which earned placement in the Entrepreneur Hot 500, Inc. 5000, and the St. Louis Business Journal’s list of Largest IT Consulting Firms.

TDK was founded in April 2001 by David Kocs, Kristin Tucker and Terry Tucker, three IT industry veterans. Starting with a staff of 10, the company has since grown to 143 employees and has received several awards for its excellence in IT consulting. TDK has achieved success by focusing on its core competencies of Technology and Management Services.

TDK’s success story has not been devoid of challenges. It was founded between the dotcom bust and 9/11, when many technology companies were failing.

As principal David Kocs recently explained in an interview with Profile magazine, “Things were definitely touch and go for awhile, but we continued to survive. We continued to make payroll. We were thankful to be able to rely on the business relationships that we had made in the past."

Coming out of the 2001 recession TDK grew steadily between 2001 and 2004, at which point it lost co-founder Terry Tucker to a brain tumor. Despite the loss, principal Kristin Tucker notes that TDK “regrouped pretty quickly, since the company was really beginning to take off at the exact time."

And take off it did, showing rapid growth between 2004 and 2008 in an ascent to the top of the hypercompetitive St. Louis IT consulting market. TDK has maintained that position even during the recent recessionary economic climate. In fact, due to TDK’s business model and experience facing similar challenges, principal Kristin Tucker described the recession as “business as usual."

Business as usual for TDK entails providing IT solutions which deliver business results to its clients, either through staff augmentation or project outsourcing delivery models.