The secret Amphora masterplan (just between me and you)
The growth agency built for growth people
In January 2023, I’ll be launching Amphora. I want to build the growth agency that I wished existed when I was an in-house head of growth or as a founder.
I want to build a household name growth agency. One that does inspiring, positive work, for technology brands and startups.
Why start an agency? There’s a few founding principles we will believe in.
We’re entering a new wave of creativity, advertising and growth. The 2010s were about last-click, short termism, and left brain immediacy and logic. But we have just been through/are living through a generational shift in culture, business, and technology.
Technology is a force for good. Throughout history, it has been the single biggest democratising factor in society. We will work with tech and tech-enabled brands that are helping shape the future.
The only way to be true to clients’ problems is by being full service. Give someone a hammer, they’ll see nails. PPC agencies will suggest PPC answers. CRO agencies, CRO solutions etc. That’s not client-centric. Long term, we will answer your growth challenges using anything within the growth arsenal.
Growth is not marketing. It’s psychology, it’s science, it’s process, it’s mindset, and it’s understanding the mechanics of how your business will grow.
Focus is critical. In five years time, Amphora will have helped supports dozens of clients to scale their growth affordably. We will likely have multiple offices around the world, and multiple areas of expertise. But year one is not year five. Day Zero thinking from the start.
Who am I?
I have 15 years experience in digital marketing, growth, and startups.
I was founder of Wine List – imagine Masterclass meets Naked Wines – which hit £1m ARR, raised £750k and failed to find PMF.
I was head of growth and first employee at Thriva. Where I acquired the first 50k customers – almost all via paid social.
I was early in the Pact Coffee growth team – where I acquired 10,000s of customers via print marketing, referral, and partnerships.
My first job was as a copywriter. Where I learnt the importance of communicating big complicated ideas in the language of the consumer.
My second job was at an agency. I got my taste for agency life, falling in love with the creativity, working environments, and culture of the life.
How we work
We aren’t in the business of being your paid media specialists – even though we do that very well. We are in the business of growth and problem-solving.
What’s your vision? Your strategy for the year? And your OKRs for this quarter?
We work to those things, not siloed away from them.
We run everything we do through the growth process.
That means: insights-driven experimentation, rapid feedback loops, and a process that prioritises learning.
We run all of our channels creative-first. The cost of media buying is going to zero. The strategy is in your creative. It’s been at the heart of how we’ve taken brands from 0 to 7 figures of monthly spend across multiple categories.
The future for Amphora
While we begin with paid acquisition, we know to be a true ‘growth agency’ we must be full service. Maslow's hammer has taught us that to those with hammers, everything looks like a nail. Paid ads is not the solution to every growth problem – but it is one of the most common.
If you currently have a bottleneck on paid social, or simply wish it was performing better for you, then get in touch. We’d love to chat.
Footnotes: some things that we get excited by:
Measurement and attribution. Last-click died with iOS14. MMM, econometrics, this is the future. You have a window now to get ahead.
Core advertising principles. This is part-art and part-science. It’s a craft. And somewhere in the 21st century this seemed to get lost. Digital changed a lot of things, but don’t forget the core.
Product-market fit. This is probably the one subject I’ve gone on about more than any other.
Culture and psychology. Why do people do the things they do? What gets them up in the morning? What makes them watch half an hour of one creator’s TikTok? Culture. And Psychology.
Tomorrow. Societal development is not inevitable. The world today is both fraught and full of opportunity. But we look forward to tomorrow with open arms. If “past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour,” then we can only be excited about what comes next.