WHEN Jo Ayoubi, a former training director for Ernst & Young met software expert Steve Walsh, their lives fused in more ways than one.

For a start they fell in love. Then seven years ago they launched Track Surveys Ltd, which is described as an online talent management company, based at York Science Park - and the chemistry was perfect.

Their first product was developed when a contact asked for a flexible, tailored online system to allow company managers to gather feedback on their management skills.

Jo's training experience combined with Steve's software development skills created a simple-to-use, flexible tool that is the basis of what is now a small but booming company.

Now the couple, who have two staff, with a third to follow soon, are aiming to win both the Small Business Of The Year and Growth Business Of The Year titles in The Press Business Awards 2007.

The business grew slowly but steadily throughout 2004 and 2005 as new clients in financial services, the legal sector and IT service providers were found.

But the big break came at the end of 2005 when Track Surveys won a competitive bid to supply Fujitsu Services, a global supplier of IT solutions, with software which offered feedback, in ten European languages, to 2,500 of its people managers at the firm's Fujitsu Management Academy.

Other large projects followed, including a global employee opinion survey for Foseco plc, the steel and foundry business operating in Europe, Russia, South East Asia, India and the Americas. This time theb software had to be understood in 19 different languages.

In both cases these giant corporations were attracted by the after-sales care offered by the company.

The result has been a more- than-fourfold increase in turnover in a year, from a little more than £54,000 at the end of February 2006 to £230,000 by last February.