Mount Mate started in 2021 because nobody we knew wanted to fill in a form. We answer by text, we agree the price in the chat, and we turn up with the bracket already in the van. Five years and 7,200 tellies later, it's the same routine.
"We answer in the same place you ask. That's basically the whole thing."
The first TV we ever mounted was the morning after a barbecue.
March 2021. A neighbour had been waiting four days for a quote from an installer who kept saying he'd "swing by". On the third day, half-tipsy at his barbecue, we offered to do it on the Saturday. He sent us a photo of the wall by text that night. We sent back a price the next morning. By the Saturday afternoon the telly was up.
That was the whole moment. He'd been waiting four days for someone to tell him what something would cost. We answered in twenty minutes. Not because we were faster — because we'd answered in the place he was actually waiting. His phone. The same thread you would have started anyway.
Two of his neighbours saw the install and asked for the same. We started a number. We bought a sodium-yellow van because if we were going to do this we wanted to be the most-visible van in the street. By the end of that summer we were three days a week. By the next year we were two of us full-time.
Five years later we're still two — Tom and Mara. We don't grow the headcount, and we don't take on franchise offers, because the moment you have more than two installers you start sounding like a call centre, and we'd rather just be the mate you text.
The four operating rules of the workshop. We've lost the odd job over each of them, which is how we know they're not just marketing.
The figure we text you is the figure on the invoice. If the wall turns out trickier than the snap suggested, we eat the difference. We've never charged above the texted price.
Never drywall alone. Steel-spanning bar between studs when the stud spacing's wrong. The telly should feel like a permanent fixture, not a balanced one.
Before any drill, the telly is held up so you can sit on the sofa and tell us if the line's right. After, we don't pack up until you've actually said you're happy with it.
Cloths down before the drill. Dust hoovered before we leave. Packaging carried out with us — not stuffed into your bin. The room you handed us is the room you get back.
One of these two will turn up at your door. We trade off the diary depending on who's closer; whoever it is runs the same checklist and texts you back in the same chat thread.
co-founder · drives the van
Carpenter by trade before turning to walls. Specialises in fireplaces, masonry, and the older buildings with plaster-on-lath. Texts the most.
co-founder · answers the chats
Reads every snap that lands. The reason the twelve-minute reply number is a number and not a slogan. Full-motion arm expert and the calmest hand on awkward angles.
Refreshed end of every month, straight from the calendar. We never round these up — partly because we don't need to, partly because it would feel weird.
No plans to expand, franchise, or sell on. The moment you grow past two installers you start sounding like a call centre, and we'd rather just be the mate you text. If anything ever changes here, you'll hear it from Mara directly, in the chat.