One year ago today, we received our certificate of incorporation which made us officially a company. In the ensuing 12 months we’ve worked with some great clients on some really interesting projects and doubled in size from two to four partners.
Although Harry and I had worked together before – me as a freelancer and him as a BBC producer – our first project as Outlandish Ideas was a data management app for the BBC Academy. The project went well and we have continued to work with them through the year, developing the product further.
Nearly all of our new clients come to us through recommendations
Like the BBC Academy, most of our other clients have come back to us with more work or recommended us to friends, colleagues and their wider network. Indeed nearly all of our new clients come to us through recommendations. We must be doing something right.
In April, Harry and I were joined by Rasmus, who quit his job as senior developer at Ocado to come and make websites and prototypes with us. He increased our productivity so much that we briefly ran out of work! But by the time Abi joined, in June, we were working at full capacity again. As well as bringing social media and marketing expertise, she’s been instrumental in keeping the company organised and project-focused.
And we’re not stopping there: next Monday we will be joined by Ollie Relph, turning our quartet into a quintet. We’ve previously hired Ollie as a freelancer on several projects and we’re excited to be working with him on a permanent basis. Not only is he a hotshot visual designer but he codes Python, ActionScript, PHP, JavaScript… the list goes on!
One year ago, Outlandish Ideas was just a couple of guys with laptops. Today we are a web agency with a full spectrum of skills spanning social media, software development, prototyping, digital marketing, design, market research & generating ideas.
A huge thank you to all our clients, our friends, families and partners – your support and trust has been invaluable.
Despite starting our business in the middle of the worst recession for decades, we’ve had a fantastic first year. And I fully expect year two to be even better.