EmailOctopus:

EmailOctopus has grown from a one-off project to a global email marketing platform responsible for sending over 43 billion emails at the time of writing!

The company was founded by Jonathan Bull and his brother Gareth in 2014. However, the story began in 2002 when Jonathan created a simple programming script for an email campaign he was working on for his previous business. He then rolled it out, initially as a free service, to other small businesses, who, like Jonathan, found most email marketing platforms expensive.

Jonathan worked on the software for several years while working full-time for another company. When he was made redundant, his redundancy package allowed him to reduce his working time to 2 – 3 days a week. This provided Jonathan with the perfect opportunity to ramp up the development work. In the meantime, Gareth had created a successful digital agency and was also looking for affordable email marketing software. The brothers decided that in 2014 the time was right to create a new email marketing company, and EmailOctopus was launched.

The software soon generated superb traction with its customers, and word spread, “If you’re looking for an affordable, accessible, and easy-to-use email marketing platform, EmailOctopus is for you”.

To further develop a recognisable brand, Jonathan and the company’s first employee, Tom Evans, who is now the COO, raised the company’s profile by answering email marketing-related questions on platforms such as Reddit and Quora.

Fast-forward to today. EmailOctopus is an independently owned bootstrapped start-up global SAAS business that operates across 119 countries and has worked with over 92,000 organisations. The company’s 15-strong team focus purely on email marketing, and they do it brilliantly. The same is true of their customer support, which is available 24/7.

While small businesses are the company's foundation, EmailOctopus also works with celebrities, large corporations, charities, and several bands, proving that the software really does have global reach.

EmailOctopus has been with Barnes & Scott since its beginning, following a recommendation from another Barnes & Scott client, Payhip.

Since then, Barnes & Scott has helped the business in many ways, from routine tax, accounts, and payroll to assisting the directors with VAT registration and getting to grips with the VAT OSS changes introduced through Brexit. Providing tax planning advice and assistance in setting up share schemes has helped EmailOctopus grow while remaining fully self-funded - a fantastic achievement.

Over the years of working together, it has become clear that both companies have many similarities, not least a focus on quality customer service and support.

Jonathan says of his relationship with Barnes & Scott, “I liked the fact that they were a small accounting firm who specialised in tech start-ups and that I could always speak to Tas, which is still the case today despite them being a much larger and busier firm. It’s great to work with an accountancy firm with a similar ethos to ours. They have done a great job scaling up their business without losing sight of who they are. We share a similar mindset, and we’ve always found them to be very responsive and personal.”

EmailOctopus is growing fast and intends to keep growing. However, Jonathan is keen not to put turnover ahead of the company’s enjoyable and satisfying workplace culture. They also offset 100% of their carbon emissions, and over 95% of their server's infrastructure uses renewable energy. They donate some of their profits to the Ocean Conservation Trust every year.  The company is committed to an empowering sustainability strategy to be the ‘world’s most sustainable email marketing platform’.