I have resigned as CEO of Verve Search, the company I built from scratch since January 2009. I feel sad and exited. It was a very difficult decision, but a decision I believe is the right one for me, and for Verve’s future.
“When I let go of who I am, I can become who I might be.”
I founded Verve Search in January 2009. Everyone told me I was crazy, I didn’t have experience in business, I didn’t have any savings – AND it was the middle of a recession. I did it anyway. Which was to become the defining quality of Verve.
Before starting Verve, I worked for a marketing agency where I was initially an Account Executive, then a Project manager. I was mostly hanging out at the web developers’ desks asking them loads of questions. I had only worked there for a year or so when I got unexpectedly pregnant (at 25). When I returned from maternity, 10 months later (in 2005), they said I couldn’t have my old role back, but they had a new part-time role opening up. It was something called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), I was also to be responsible for all the web analytics. I had no idea what either was, I literally googled “search engine optimisation” – the irony. But as soon as I started reading about it, I was hooked, it all made sense to me. I was a bit confused how and why people thought it was complicated. I built up the clients, grew the team and after a few years the SEO team was doing pretty well. BUT no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to convince other people in the marketing agency that we needed to charge more and grow the team faster. So, in November 2008, I handed in my notice. I had at this point been a single mum for 2 years, I had been on a salary of 25k with a daughter in childcare – I had minus £200 before I even bought food every month. And so while everyone around me sucked their teeth, I knew I had nothing to lose.
“Those who have had nothing, are not afraid of losing nothing”
There was one significant difference in me. I have talked about this many a time at conferences over the years. It is not your wealth, education, IQ or luck that makes you who you are – it is HOW YOU THINK!
I have what Malcom Gladwell often refers to as “the advantage of the disadvantage”. I grew up in a broken home, with one alcoholic parent, one avoiding parent. Both parents were bankrupt, so we rarely had money and often had the electric, phone etc turned off. We moved a lot and I went to a whopping 6 different primary schools. I am also dyslexic (not diagnosed before late teens) and I believe many people including teachers and friends thought I was not very bright and a bit troubled. The difference though, is that I never for a second thought they were right, I knew I was smart and capable, and although it made me sad that so many didn’t get me, I never listened to them. The self-assurance some people only get to in their 40s, and some never even get, I had at 15. It didn’t matter to me that everyone in a room thought I couldn’t do something, if I thought I could, I would just do it!
So, for me, starting an agency at the height of the recession with the risk of losing everything, was, well, not that scary. As in my view, failing would mean I would be in the same place as I started, and that’s not really losing, and at least I would learn something.
What I knew for sure is that I really wanted to create an agency that focused on doing the best possible work – where quality was the focus. Also, a place where people enjoyed working, and felt supported to become the best that they could be. I wanted to build a company that people were proud to be a part of – where they felt appreciated and seen. I have through the years worked at numerous companies where I felt like an outlier, where there were loads of politics and cliques. I really wanted Verve to be different. And it was. And it is.
Generation 1 – The first years (2009-2011)
It has been such an incredible journey. The first year of business was exhilarating and challenging, I felt I was falling on my face most of the time. Even such a simple thing as setting up a business phone line seemed overly complicated (I hope I never need to talk to BT ever again, gah!). Although I had no clients before I started, I was fortunate enough to have a good profile in the industry. I was already speaking at conferences and blogging regularly, so I launched Verve Search speaking at SES in February 2009, I had my first client 2 weeks later. If I’m not mistaken, I think the first client was a mattress company. After three months I hired my first employee, Sam Murray. Sam and I had worked together previously (he had worked in my previous SEO team at the marketing agency but had gone travelling, bingo bango!). We had so much fun in those first 6 months, we had a really shit serviced office with the smallest windows – going in to winter it was so cold we would wear woolly hats and fingerless gloves. It was scrappy – but honest and hard working. One of our first clients together was a hotel chain called City Inn (later got bought up by Doubletree Hilton), we did our very first creative campaigns for link development. We even got a link from APPLE in our first year, if you are in SEO you know how geekalicious that is. After another few months we recruited our third employee, Nick Williams. The three musketeers.
As I have always had impeccable timing, I decided to have a second baby in the second year of business. Eek. There was no slamming the brakes on now, so there were meetings with baby changing on the board table, and conference speaking with baby in tow, breastfeeding between sessions. It wasn’t easy but not impossible. I had some amazing support from Nick and Sam, and also hired in the lovely Claire Carlile to manage things for a few months just after having my daughter. We managed. At this point I just want to give my heartfelt thank you to Sam and Nick for being part of the first years of Verve, you are both so talented, kind, courageous and hard working.
Generation 2 – The Content Years (2012-2014)
Once I got back from maternity the agency growth accelerated, Sam wanted to go travelling again and went to Australia (or so he says, he might still be in Essex, he was just too terrified to tell me he wanted to leave, ha!). And Nick moved to Texas with his wife. At this point I was keen on moving the agency more towards the creative content angle and link development. I hired Ben Holbrook on the content side and Ciaran Oliver to help on the operations.
In 2013 I had the idea of hiring a few students to train up, see which ones “got it”, and hire them full time if they did. I hired 3 students from Kingston University to do the intensive SEO training program; Daniel Smulevich, Sachinda Jayatilleke and Sohaib Siddique. They were all so amazing I ended up hiring all of them. These three all did their “year out” at Verve Search and also worked on for a while after graduating. Now Daniel is VP of Analytics at Jellyfish, Sachi is SEO Manager at Jellyfish and Sohaib worked 3 years at Morgan Stanley and is now working as a project manager while pursuing his dream to be a musician. I’m so proud of these awesome, talented guys.
Once we were about 8-10 people things started taking off, we hired a few more people on the content/link development side, including Matt, Ruth, Josie and Marta. In 2013 we did our first larger creative campaign “Skateseeing Brighton” and “Skateseeing London” for our client, Hotel Club. As a side note I want to tell you HOW these campaigns came to life, Matt Lindley and I were brainstorming ideas for this hotel client, and Matt had the idea of doing a sightseeing on a skateboard. We both thought it would be a really cool idea, BUT we just didn’t have the budget, so I said no. A few weeks later Matt comes into my office and says “so I have something to show you, and I really hope you will like it as I have paid for it myself”, he turns his laptop around and shows me the first Skateseeing Brighton video. He hired a student film crew in Brighton to do the whole video on a budget, but paid for it HIMSELF. That’s how much he believed in it. It looked SO cool, it didn’t take me long to convince the client to pay for it, and we ended up doing another video of London. THIS spirit, this VERVE – is what Verve is all about, he was so determined this was a good idea he backed himself. Matt you are a legend, I will always respect your quiet determination.
For the same client we made “Idioms of the World”, which was our first award winning campaign. By 2014 it was clear there was very little value in targeting blogs and smaller sites, this is the year we developed LinkScore Having started the “content team” I realised we would need to focus on these bigger creative campaigns instead of writing content, we needed to hire designers and developers. I tried for many months of 2014 to convince the team we had to pivot the strategy. But what was clear to me, wasn’t as clear to everyone else. By January 2015 I made the tough decision to restructure the agency and close down the content team.
What followed was some very challenging months, a lot of people were very much against my decision on changing strategy. This was the first time I really got the feeling of what it meant to be the leader – you have to make tough decisions that likely people won’t understand and don’t like. Being the leader means you have to do them anyway.
Generation 3 – “Think Like a 50s Ad Executive and execute like a Geek” Years (2015-2017)
My thinking was that we needed to spend more time on the creative, we built out the production team (designers, developers and project managers). We also set up the outreach team, the main difference was that these people needed to think more like PR people. We started using the phrase; “Think like a 50s Ad Executive and execute like a Geek”.
It was the right decision. Our performance and our profits increased significantly (above graph). We started winning awards, including “Best SEO Agency” 3 years running from 2015 to 2017 at UK Search Awards and European Search Awards. The quality of our campaigns were really taking off, getting regular viral effect and hundreds of quality links.
In these years we recruited fast, but after a few hard lessons in the early years I was adamant I really needed to find a really good right hand man, or woman, that was good at all the things I wasn’t good at. In December 2015 I hired Rebecca Feddema as Head of Operations, after completing 3 interviews, approx. 3 hours each. I know that sounds bonkers, but I had got it wrong before and couldn’t afford to get it wrong again. I have never regretted my decision, Rebecca (Becs) turned out to be the Yin to my Yang.
Hiring Becs was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, she is incredible, smart, hard working, diligent, warm, caring, compassionate and fun. For me as a daughter of an alcoholic, trust has never come easy, but I can say with my hand on my heart that Becs has taught me to trust. She is not only a partner in work but has also become a very close friend. I’m so glad she came our way. This series of pictures encapsulates me and Becs perfectly – literally always my right-hand woman.
These years were also the years where we made some other very important hires at Verve. As Ben, my previous Head of Content, moved to Barcelona I was on the lookout for someone that got the technical and the creative. Not long after we started looking for a Head of Content, I got an email from James Finlayson. He told me he wanted me to look at a website (which he linked to). It took me a few minutes to understand what I was looking at, it looked just like the Verve website, but different content. He had made his CV in the look of a fully functioning Verve look-alike website. Including a video where he walked around Surbiton telling us why he wanted to work at Verve. It was brilliant. I already knew James from when he worked at Red or Blue, and knew he was an amazing technical SEO. James is a unicorn, one of these rare people with detailed technical knowledge AND the ability to think up creative ideas that really work. James is so incredibly intelligent and creative, he really brought something different to the team, and our strategy. One thing is for sure I have had so much fun working with James, and I’ve felt that he’s had my back every bit of the way – whether he’s batman an ‘ad exec’ or, errr a shark?
In those years from 2014 to 2016, we also made so many amazing hires including the rest of what became the management team:
James Congdon (JC), who is one of the best outreach strategists I’ve ever met, there is no link this guy can’t get. He has a heart of gold and works at a speed of 100mph, seriously he’s like the “Roadrunner”. Meep meep.
Louise Ali, who was first our Head of Production then our Marketing Director. Very capable and dedicated, can get shit done at speed.
Lastly, Hannah Smith, who joined to head up the Outreach team after leaving Distilled. A skilled people manager and creative thinker.
These 5 people was an integral part of the hockey stick growth of Verve. Every one of them very talented in each of their disciplines. I couldn’t have done this without them. We formed a management team, I gave them all EMI shares, and we started on our journey to fulfil the agency vision, and to sell.
From left: James, JC, Me, Becs, Lou and Hannah. This is one of my favourite picture of us as a management team. Might not look the most professional but it perfectly depicts our sense of fun and togetherness.
It was at this point I hired a growth adviser team to help me get some more processes in place and get some structure to my management team. I started working with Miles Welch and Matt Lacey from what was then called Milestone, which later merged into Waypoint.
My vision was (word for word): “Verve Search to be the Premier International SEO agency in Europe, with a known reputation for talent, performance, creativity and knowledge. We set the standard in the industry that all other agencies aspire to reach and our team and our clients are proud to be part of the Verve family.” And I wanted this to lead to a sale of Verve.
From 2016 we really ramped up the growth, we now had a production team the size of a creative agency; developers, designers, data analysts and project managers. We also rapidly grew the outreach team and was actively outreaching in 10 different countries. Our campaigns were really taking off. By the end of 2016 we officially went out “to sale”, we had several interested parties by the end of the year.
My personal motivation
My dream has always been to buy back the house my dad built when I was a little girl, where we lived until I was 8. We had to sell the house when my dad’s business went bankrupt. This house, near the beautiful mountain of Torghatten, inspired several of the early campaigns at Verve. Including this one for Expedia Norway about the story of Torghatten. My childhood until I was 8 was totally idyllic, I know every inch of that stoney beach, full of seaweed and treasures of the ocean. I run through those woods as fast as I could, I climbed the trees, played on the beach and was out until dark. This was my foundation, and this house its symbol.
I had this picture of the house as my screensaver on my phone for 5 years.
Secondary, I longed for financial independence, to be free of money worries. Having grown up in home(s) where money was always a worry, and then being a single parent in my mid-twenties with only debt to my name. I really wanted my kids not to have to worry, for me not to have to worry anymore, for my parents and siblings not to worry. The day before I sold Verve I had £3.93 in my savings account.
Lastly, and the strongest motivation, I really want to do something that makes a difference in the world. I want to apply myself to solve something bigger. More on that at a later date.
“If you see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hands”
I am a very visual person. Ever since I can remember I have visualised what I want to happen in my head, they used to call me a daydreamer. As a teenager I started doing these vision boards of what I wanted to achieve and what I wanted to happen. I thought everyone did this. This is the funny thing about your thoughts, we all think that we all think the same. But our THINKING, it turns out, is what really sets us a apart. And the power of how and what we think, is probably the most underestimated power there is.
I continued doing these vision boards throughout my life, when I started Verve, I continued this tradition and also started doing vision workshop with the whole agency. For the last 8 years, every person at Verve, has had a vision board on their desk.
“The clearer you are when visualising your dreams, the brighter the spotlight will be to lead you on the right path.”
I’m not saying vision boards are magical (although a lot of my friends believe my vision board is, as what I put on there so often comes true). No, the reason that visualisation and vision boards are so powerful is that you are setting a goal for your subconsciousness to be activated. The power of our mind, and particularly our non-analytical brain, then helps us see the opportunities that will lead us to our goals. I personally think that setting goals and making step by step plans to get there, takes away the hundreds of opportunities you didn’t foresee in your plan. Having a vision, something big and far stretching, opens up hundreds of ways getting to the same goal. I will write more about the neuroscience of this in the near future.
I have spoken at many conferences talking about what make someone successful? We usually think it has something to do with: IQ, education, family circumstances/connections, money or luck. I really believe that what really make someone successful is HOW they THINK!
You see, I dropped out of University, I am dyslexic, I am from a broken home, and I’m sad to say my IQ is totally average. I have, through my career, talked to hundreds of people that are successful in business, in the traditional sense*. What I have observed in all of these people, that they all have in common is their; drive, dedication, passion, empathy and self-belief. Together I think this makes up what is often referred to as GRIT. I believe that the self-belief part of this is absolutely paramount in order to achieve, that is because there is plenty of people in this world that will tell you that you can’t do something, that you don’t have experience or skill it takes. Self-belief is when it doesn’t matter to you that there are 100 people in a room that says you can’t, if you believe you can, you just do it. It doesn’t mean you don’t care what people think, it just means that you don’t need others to believe as long as YOU yourself believe. This is what will set you apart.
* As a side note: I want to qualify that I am referring to what is often associated with “success” like career projections, achievements and financial success. This is by NO means the only measure of success and neither do I believe this will make people happy
The Acquisition of Verve Search – 2017
After only 3 months on the “market” as such we had a Letter of Intent to buy Verve in January 2017. I was prepared for the next few months of negotiations to take its toll, and although I wouldn’t say the process was easy, it was pretty much as I expected. Some parts I thought would be very challenging were easy. For example, due diligence, which everyone prepared me for being one of the most gruelling processes, was very straight forward. But that was because I had such a kick ass organised team. Becs and my then PA Lynsey, had spent 3 weeks getting everything ready for due diligence, preparing all the documentation they could possibly ask for. Thank you Lynsey for taking charge of this process (she’s like Monica from Friends on speed when it comes to organising). Oh the smugness we felt sending the link to the Dropbox with neatly labelled folders only weeks after receiving the official due diligence requests.
I spent a lot of my time talking to my advisor team, Matt and Otto at Waypoint, and my kick ass lawyers, Deborah and Rebecca at KempLittle. I realised the most important thing to negotiate was not the multiplier (price offered for the company), but rather making sure that I still had control of the company, and that no one could make us do anything we didn’t want to. Just this one clause took 3 months to finalise, all the “can and can’t make us do”. The legendary clause 12.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing though, there were doubts (mostly on my part) on several of the requests they had made, one of the main doubts being that they wanted us to merge their SEO team (at OMD EMEA) into Verve as part of the deal. I didn’t think this was a good idea, but was convinced by my advisors to accept. In hindsight I think this said more about where they saw us fit in and how. All Omnicom’s SEO capabilities are relatively small teams sitting within individual agencies. We were a specialist agency. This was bound to be a challenge.
The total process and negotiation took a whopping 9 months (the same time it takes to grow a baby) but on 15th December 2017 the deal was signed.
From left: Peter Poelzlbauer (Omnicom Media Group), Rebecca Feddema, James Congdon, Lisa Paasche, James Finlayson, Louise Ali and Hannah Smith.
“We are all like rubber bands – how far we have stretched depends on our experience”
I believe that everyone is like a rubber band, your experiences stretches your band, and you get new borders of what you can endure. But it is important to realise that everyone’s border, their tightest stretch, is their worst experience. Never force anyone to stretch further and have empathy for their border. Yours might be more stretched or less stretched – this is not a competition.
I learnt so much from running and growing Verve. But the one thing that really sticks with me is the people. It IS chemistry. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what religion you are, what gender, colour or class. To really achieve you need to inspire and touch the human soul. Our differences inspire our creativity, but our empathy for each other keeps us together, accountable and able to achieve what others think is not possible. With Verve!
To be continued…..
In the next post I will cover the last 3 years (2018-2020), generation 4 of Verve Search. Including: challenges of growth, conflicts and people challenges, mental health, covid and the decision to leave. Finally what I’m doing next.
I still need some time to process and think about how I write the second part of this story. I am currently on gardening leave until the end of January, which serendipitously will be exactly 12 years since I founded Verve Search. It make sense to me to have the last and final part of the story go live then. A closure.
