From student loans to one of our fastest-growing creative agencies
WHILE many of his peers were using their student loans to go out and have a good time, Ryan Walton was investing his into his business.
And it has paid off.
Aura Ads is quickly closing in on a £1m run rate in its first year.
Like with all good businesspeople, it was all about spotting that gap in the market and exploiting it.
For Ryan, that gap was DTC marketing. This is direct to consumer marketing using video and reaching customers on social media.
Or more basically, making video content for companies to build their brand awareness on social media.
Ryan already has an impressive roster of clients which include Huel, Pact Coffee, Abbot Lyon and Freddie’s Flowers.
“DTC brands rely on paid social, specifically Facebook ads, to drive a large proportion of their sales revenue,” explains Ryan.
“The performance of that sales channel, particularly customer acquisition, is extremely reliant on great creativity to convert prospects into paying customers.
“The current options on offer in the market were extremely limited, and with the rapid move to online, which was accelerated by Covid, I decided to create something purpose-built for the market.
“Something that I knew first-hand from running my own small DTC brand and talking to friends who ran e-commerce brands would immediately gain traction and be of interest to the DTC market.”
So what does Aura Ads do? “Aura Ads is our DTC-focused subscription service that allows our clients to produce beautiful direct response creative for paid social on a monthly basis, friction-free,” explains Ryan.
“As far as I’m aware, it’s the first of its kind – a fully productised service business, which makes it even more exciting.”
In terms of monthly recurring revenue, Ryan says the business is heading towards a £1m-per-year run rate and expects to be there within the next few months.
He adds that the company is sitting on six figures in the bank and it is maintaining that margin despite rapid growth.
Despite being only 23 years of age, Ryan has gathered a lot of experience to get himself to this point. And the company has been built without any loans.
“We received no business grants and no investments,” Ryan says.
“I bootstrapped the company with my student loans, using the money to live off whilst I started to make the business cash-generating.
“I was always in the mindset that the business should be self-sustaining and revenue-generating from day one. I didn’t want to lose any equity whilst it was still finding its feet.”
He also reached out to friends to help gain further understanding of the markets and their needs.
“When I was first starting the business, I was lucky enough to meet a couple of friends who, at the time, ran early-stage e-commerce brands, and through those relationships I was able to really understand the pain points of the market and understand what they needed most,” Ryan explains.
“I also wanted to get a feel for the market first-hand, so I set up my own little e-commerce brand, a dropshipping store [a business model that allows entrepreneurs to start an online business and sell products to their buyers without ever actually stocking the items themselves] that sold accessories for French bulldogs.
“This was very much a sandpit for testing different ideas and understanding what worked and what didn’t.
“I wish I could say that business was successful, but the reality is that I made a lot of mistakes and learned
from them. It was also the platform with which I was able to build my understanding of the e-commerce space and credit my success now with that sandpit.”
As with every business, the pandemic threw up plenty of obstacles to overcome. As well as concern for the mental and physical wellbeing of his staff, Ryan was also having to deal with working out a way to continue shooting videos despite the intermittent lockdowns. This meant he and members of his staff resorted to building studios at home for product shoots.
“We also gave a small discount to brands that chose to use animation rather than taking part in on-location shoots, as this would decrease the amount of time members of staff had to spend in new places, with new people,” said Ryan.
“We preferred to give the discount than put staff and actors at any sort of increased risk.”
Despite the pandemic, Ryan has been able to build the team at Aura Ads. In February he was a lone operator, and over the past year he has brought on board seven members of staff. He anticipates hiring around four more people in the coming months.
Ryan is also looking for office space to house the team and has space for shooting and editing.
Working for himself has always been the aim for Ryan.
“I wanted to be a change-maker, to be able to just ‘do stuff’ when I felt like it rather than be prohibited by someone else,” he says.
“I detest the idea of being stuck in a job that you don’t particularly enjoy, with little ability to influence the company you work for or your immediate environment.
“I feel like I have a talent for accruing knowledge and applying it to areas that I think could be developed into something more than they are now. Across the few part-time jobs I had before starting my company, I always felt like reporting to someone else would reduce my ability to do that.”
The key bit of advice Ryan has for someone starting a business is to think small. Not for the business but the idea.
“You’re much better off becoming an expert in a more specific, niche market rather than being a generalist,” he explains.
“The most valuable advice I can give to someone who’d like to start their own business is understand and segment your market. Spend time understanding your target customer, what their needs are and how you may be able to help them.”
Ryan is ambitious for the future. He doesn’t see any limitations.
“First and foremost we want to get to our £1m run-rate target. That’s our big objective at the moment. From there, I think it’ll be a case of scaling up further and aiming ever higher. £5m? £10m? Who knows, but it’s all absolutely achievable for us,” he says.
“We’ll also be taking on some investment with partners we think will help to rapidly accelerate our growth and open up new doors, which is extremely exciting.”
Ryan is also keen to point out that he wouldn’t have been able to do this without his support network.
“I have so much love and gratitude for family, friends, and my partner, who have all backed me 100%, giving me the ability to confidently make decisions knowing that I have people who will support me no matter what.”