Melton entrepreneur is spearheading new business growth agency

From left, entrepreneurs Richard Marriott and Simon Penson.

An entrepreneur from Melton is at the forefront of a new venture to help businesses to accelerate their growth.

Richard Marriott, who was born and brought up in Melton, has teamed up with fellow entrepreneur Simon Penson to launch Scaled.co.uk

The launch follows a six month research phase to gauge the likely interest in the new agency from other business owners.

Both Mr Marriott, who was formally growth officer for marketing specialists Ride Shotgun and head of Peterborough-based Zazzle Media, which was founded by Mr Penson, say they will offer a full range of agency-focused growth services from mentoring and coaching to hands on strategic and tactical growth services.

Senior Partner Mr Marriott will also be in charge of developing a platform to further help businesses in the digital services and agency space whilst continuing to offer fractional B2B marketing, and commercial services as part of the wider consultancy offering.

He said: “I can’t wait to get stuck into this new initiative.

"Having recently helped Ride Shotgun revolutionise their sales and marketing strategy, and previously playing a pivotal part in the growth of Zazzle Media, it’s exciting to be able to help other agency owners and founders on their growth journeys.

"Simon and I have a good track record and between us have a lot of experience which we’re looking forward to sharing.

"We’ve got lots of exciting plans in the pipeline and this is just the beginning.”

Scaled.co.uk plans to hire staff soon.

Mr Penson, who after selling Zazzle Media, which had 250 staff, for an estimated eight figure sum, joined forces with Peterborough entrepreneur Scott Weavers-Wright, the founder of Kiddicare.com, at venture capital business Haatch for several years, said: “With the majority of agencies failing to get past a few million in revenue it was clear to me that the lessons of growing an agency business past 100 people had real value to others.

"The mistakes we made can help them avoid the same pot holes.”

He added: “I’ve spent a lot of time helping start-ups scale up.

"That time has been super helpful in proving a lot of the lessons learned as an agency founder and the reality is nothing quite has the buzz of agency land, and so I had to come back.”