Husband and wife's digital agency aiming for the stars following Boost support

Code Galaxy was founded in 2017 by husband-and-wife team Nicky and Mary Speakman. It provides website design, graphic design and digital marketing services to a range of local businesses and large organisations including Club Wembley and the NHS.

Code Galaxy has experienced rapid growth due to demand for its digital services and the team has grown from two to six. In the past year the agency has doubled profits with a turnover growth of 70 per cent.

Having previously taken part in Boost’s business start-up programme at the beginning of their business journey, Mary and Nicky turned to Boost for more support, mindful that they needed to take a more holistic view of their business to establish future sustainable growth.

Mary and Nicky joined Boost’s Growth Mentoring programme in March 2022 and received sales advice and support from Nikki Hesford as well as one-to-one mentoring from John Townsend.

Mary said: “One of the issues of being part of a fast-growing business is not having the time to work on the business, instead of just being part of the day-to-day management.”

Boost is Lancashire's Business Growth Hub and is led by Lancashire County Council and the Lancashire LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership). It is supported by funding from Lancashire County Council, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

As a funded business support service, Boost helps Lancashire business owners and leaders navigate the local, regional and national public and private sector business support landscape, to find the right support for their business. Boost also delivers a number of funded programmes for start-up, established and fast-growing businesses.

John helped Mary and Nicky take a top-level view of the business and prepare a plan of action for future growth. They reviewed the visibility of the business, as well as its team structure and people’s roles. A training program is now being implemented to upskill all staff.

During the mentoring programme they also worked on the agency’s internal systems to eliminate duplication. John also helped Mary and Nicky to determine where savings could be made and to highlight any weaknesses and how to address them.

This has enabled more clients to be onboarded by the Code Galaxy team without any adverse effects on existing clients. They also reviewed their customer database to identify previous projects and how this information and delivery could be used for potential new clients.   

Nikki, who has expertise in sales and digital marketing, looked at potential sources of lead generation for the agency. She focussed on the type of work they were looking to attract, the type of problems they solve, and how to approach ‘outreach business development’ against a sales target that will achieve their growth goals.

As part of its growth plans for 2023, Code Galaxy is now set to launch two new programmes to support its website services that aim to improve and simplify website monitoring and event management.

Code Galaxy has also recently hired a junior software engineer and is seeking to recruit additional front-end developers and website designers to join their growing team.

This year Code Galaxy was a finalist at the North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce BIBAs 2022 in the digital and marketing category. Mary was also a finalist at the Pink Link EVAs 2022.

John said: “We prepared a marketing plan based on the business they seek to attract. It identified they were restricted in bidding for certain national contracts due to lacking specific accreditations required. This area is now being addressed.”

Nikki Hesford added: “It’s always a pleasure to work with enthusiastic business leaders that come through the mentoring programme and get so much out of it. Mary and Nicky have a fantastic working partnership and certainly benefitted from our programme.”

Mary added: “We know that growth comes from various sources. Building the team, our product and service range and improving processes, and by looking at what’s ahead, not just what’s happening now.

“John and Nikki helped us to listen and talk about our growth barriers and make positive action points for the future. Our business has propelled thanks to the support from Boost’s Growth Mentoring programme.”