“We had no clients, no money, no office… absolutely nothing.”

Fast forward seven years later, and for Martin Richardson, it’s quite the opposite: his agency Ten Thousand Hours is now making waves, including a whopping £4.2m in revenue, and £1m EBITDA.

The agency was borne out of Martin and his business partner outgrowing their previous agency, starting out on their own on a whim.

Martin will be joining us to talk about how Ten Thousand Hours has overcome several growth barriers in such a short space of time, including:

• Overcoming initial obstacles. “We had a period at the start where we were reaching out to people, but no one was biting. When you get to six months with no clients, you start to wonder, ‘Have we done the right thing?’. Being bound by NDAs from their previous agency didn’t help… until they won a giant of a client in Google DeepMind.
• Adapting to change. Like everyone else, the agency was affected by the pandemic – but not in the way you’d think. The agency took a strategic shift from physical and virtual events to focus on engagement and unique value. It ended up being incredibly profitable…
• Winning the ‘right’ work. “Our success, strategically, has come down to us being financially astute, and understanding exactly what projects to work on,” says Martin.
• Prioritising added value over pricing. “Sometimes we can be seen as expensive, but we’re all about the added value, and challenging clients to help them be the best. We’re not just doing standard logistics, we’re contributing to their business growth plans,” says Martin.

Join us as Martin shares his agency’s growth journey so far, and how they’ve overcome the usual growth obstacles to success.