Tim Richardson's Linkedin Analytics

My career path has been anything but conventional. I started out in finance at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and a VC backed start-up accelerator but realised that corporate life was not for me. So, in a fit of creative ambition (or stupidity?), I left finance to start a record label. I spent the next three years cutting my teeth on branding, marketing, eCommerce, distribution and partnerships. But alas, the business failed. So I became a consultant. I took my corporate and SMB knowledge and spent the next five years applying it as a freelance strategic marketing consultant, working with companies like West Cork Music, Britvic Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin. However, I was destined for agency-land. In 2016 I joined Shopify Plus agency, We Make Websites, as their first commercial lead. Over the next five and a half years, as Head of Growth then Commercial Director, my focus powered us from £1m to £6.5m and one of the biggest Shopify agencies in the world. Along the way, I advised brands like Pangaia, Toteme, Jigsaw, Toast, Hasbro, This Works, David Beckham and Alessi. After we sold the business in 2021, I cashed my shares and turned my podcast, Your Basket Is Empty (started in 2018), into a solo consulting company that focussed on eCommerce Tech GTM and agency exit strategy. But the thought of starting an agency was always in the back of my mind. In 2023, I reconnected with Lucy at an industry event. We spent hours discussing the flaws of the traditional agency model and realised we shared a vision for something different—an agency designed not to scale. And with that, Factory was born.