Hookflash
London
Website: Hookflash
Founder: Oliver Walker, Dan Jennings, Marc Warren and Nicole Storey
Year founded: 2023
UK headcount: <50
Locations: London
We wanted to create something with big agency experience with small agency feel.
Profile
Hookflash arrived on the scene at the beginning of 2023 with a mission to become the best digital optimisation agency in the UK. A unique combination of the shift to GA4, new AI tools and changing customer expectations had created a new battleground for websites and apps at the time; and with it, an opportunity that was too big for Oliver Walker and Dan Jennings to ignore. Simply, they wanted to help brands make their websites work better.
The name Hookflash was landed upon in memory of one of the agency’s founders’ fathers, who had an old communications consultancy business dealing with ‘hook flash’, which was a feature on analogue telephone lines at the time. It was short and sweet, and the domain name was available (though they still get called ‘Hookfish’ from time to time).
Having an expert focus on three core disciplines – SEO, analytics and CRO – has worked in Hookflash’s favour so far, which has worked with over 80 brands and achieved 100% revenue growth in its first two years. Some of its major clients include XP Factory, Danone and Barbour.
In terms of people, there are currently 16 employees headquartered in London but Hookflash has ambitious plans to outgrow its office space as quickly as it can every year. While there are no big plans to expand into Europe at present, it will keep an eye on opportunities to expand services organically – though Hookflash is not interested in venturing into media buying.
Learning and development has played a key role in creating a culture that enables growth; in particular, giving employees 20% of time to dedicate to L&D and holding peer learning sessions so its three core teams can learn from one another.
What next, then, for this two-year-old agency? Some founders may have a ‘North star’ number in mind for exiting the business, but it is still early days and mergers and acquisitions are not currently on the agenda for Oliver and Dan.
“We always said, let’s create a business that we would want to work for or work with. Let’s do that and see where it takes us.”