We Are Shapes: Shaping up nicely with a Start Up Loan from Let’s Do Business Finance
Jim and Steve from We Are Shapes, Kent, have created a new type of agency with the help of a Start Up Loan – blending together accounting and marketing services to serve small businesses across the county and beyond.
After successful careers in their respective fields of accounting and marketing, friends Jim and Steve decided to make a change. Inspired to make 2023 different and the year they put their experience towards growing something new, they founded We Are Shapes (or simply ‘Shapes’, for short) – a fresh spin on support for businesses, and a blend of intuitive accounting software and impactful marketing, underpinned by a passion to see digital at the heart of every small business.
Shapes was born in the summer of 2023 – coined an ‘accountancy agency’, but blending together two disciplines that at first might seem miles apart, but are key to business growth.
The ever-growing Shapes team
Jim and Steve met through church 14 years ago, and became friends – bouncing ideas off of each other, and staying in touch after bonding through running. From the get go, they connected over their passion for digital experiences – and even though their careers and skills were different, they understood each others thought processes and what they each valued about the impact of their roles.
Introducing Jim
After studying Maths at University and graduating into a role at a traditional accountancy firm, Jim saw in the early part of his career the transition of the accounting sector from piles of paper and floppy disks to a smarter, faster, and more intuitive Cloud based one. With names like Xero and Google becoming more commonplace and a way of working, Jim saw how this evolved for clients too – seeing the benefit of this new way of working and the positive impact it had on businesses and the people running them.
Having worked in a firm and developed his skills, Jim decided to make a change – feeling it was time to do something different. Reaching out to one of his previous account managers at Xero, he changed direction to a consultancy role – which gave him the freedom to travel all over the UK, helping hundreds of businesses from top name firms to one-man-bands working in their back garden to use Xero and find a better way through digital accounting. Personal progression at an all time high, he gained skills in everything from negotiation and presentation skills, to learn how a business actually works and grows, as well as the market knowledge to know what’s working and what isn’t – skills which would come in very handy, to be found out in a coffee shop later!
“I see more and more that the firms that are different and doing things well, they’re fresh and exciting, and their clients are enjoying the experience they’re getting. These are firms and businesses that haven’t just got accountants in the building, they’re got different brains in the building. Everyone might be specialist in their own thing, and that’s what made a great business. Rather than people be good at one thing and then have to pick up the job of marketing etc, they have specialists and that sets you up to do things well as a business.”
Meet Steve!
While Jim was thinking of a new angle to support businesses, Steve was too. For the 18 years prior, he’d been working on all things creative – from freelance web design, to marketing and everything in between. After a few years in banking in London, Steve moved to Kent and worked in the community arts & creative sector for around 8 years, before working for and eventually co-owning a specialist UX (user experience) web agency in Canterbury, before moving to a global ad agency in London, as Head of digital experiences for big household names. However, what he felt was missing was the engagement and tangible impact when working with smaller firms or charities.
“When you work with smaller companies or firms or charities, the impact is quicker to see and feel, and I missed that. I missed working with actual people that the work makes a difference to. With small businesses you often work with the owners alongside the marketing team, and it makes a big difference and you can really feel that.
I missed running my own thing. I wanted freedom, my own team, and to be my own boss. Having that in my head, and hearing that Jim wanted to start doing something different too, that really planted the seed”
Come December 2022, Steve had also been playing with the idea of something new to get his teeth into. Jim on a similar wavelength but toying with the idea of starting a new firm, the two met for coffee – originally to discuss the potential for Steve to create a website and branding for Jim’s own accountancy firm. From that first meeting, both realised there might be something more to their idea – they both shared similar values on how they wanted their own work to impact small businesses, and toyed with the idea of a hybrid agency that would bring something entirely unique to the table.
Steve didn’t want an accounting firm, and Jim didn’t want a marketing agency. They knew from their own experiences and what they’d seen on the market that the two disciplines were aligned in that they both have the potential to make a real, tangible difference to businesses – and so the result, was the creation of an accounting agency. They kept coming back to the ‘why’ and the point of it all – to help firms become better digital businesses and overcome their challenges, to make them more profitable, and ultimately give them their time back.
Finding the edge
Biting the bullet and handing in their notices to their current jobs, Shapes was born and incorporated on 19th May 2023 – founded on a belief that through clever and effective marketing, and transparent and smart accounting, businesses could focus on what they do best – running the business they love.
“When we started talking about creating a business, it wasn’t about building an accounting or marketing agency, it was about the impact of the end result. We didn’t want it to be cliché, but it means a lot to the both of us. It’s the complete flip of the culture - we wanted to eliminate the parts of the job that businesses dread or don’t like doing, and get them to actually enjoy running their business.
We can save the stress of life, and we can give them a better management pack that’s all up to date, and the impact of that is time saved, stress saved, and the whole benefit.”
Jim and Steve’s idea for Shapes was a flip on the traditional offering for businesses. By combining marketing and accounting, the effect is that businesses can see the true impact of their work, and view their successes in real time – not just juggle between outsourcing marketing and accounting to different agencies, or managing it themselves. Business owners would be able to sit back, get the whole picture, and everyone would be focused on the same thing – growing the business!
“The finance in particular, people don’t enjoy the finances 9 times out of 10, they don’t go into business for that. People don’t love invoices and sending them, it’s just stuff that has to happen if you have a business. The highs and lows of running a business are really high and really low, there’s something like 7.5 small businesses having those highs and lows. Our question and mission is, how can we soften those?
Call us an accounting agency - we’re a hybrid, but we want people to be excited that they work with us. Part of it is that we alleviate financial stress and do good financial planning. All accountancy firms say ‘we’re more than accountancy’ – but we plan to live up to that.”
Building their client base from the very beginning, Jim and Steve started to work with businesses from all sectors and sizes to put their ideas for Shapes into practice. They began to gain clients that originally only wanted creative or marketing strategy help, or standalone accounting, and a handful that even began to receive both in tandem due to loving the Shapes way of working. Staying true to their original ideals for the business, Jim and Steve didn’t just want to delivering output – they wanted to deliver a service, and a great one at that; one that would have their clients coming back for more and create working relationships that would lead to real business growth and impact, not just numbers.
“We don’t just want to be delivering output, we want to be delivering how we can we make your business better - we want to walk with them, instead of selling AT them. For us it’s about long haul and relationships rather than quick flings.”
Really, more than accounting!
Shapes is committed to making all the moving pieces of running a business work better, from the ground up. Their client relationships are centred on meeting at least quarterly if not each month, and constantly innovating their service to provide a modern and fresh service for the businesses they work with. The business model for Shapes is clear – transparent from the ground up, from transparent accounting and processes internally, to regular and clear pricing and payments for their clients, with these being reviewed periodically to make sure they’re working in the best and most productive way possible. Wanting to deliver a service that is relationship led instead of output, the offering for Shapes is a first for Kent – and one of the very few in the country that do it this way.
“We want to create a culture that people love being part of from top to bottom, that our clients can feel!”
Building the future of Shapes
Steadily growing and the agency taking ‘shape’, Jim and Steve started to think about what they wanted their first year in business to look like. They wanted to finish 2023 on a high – to demonstrate the potential of the business and that it was a business model and ethos that worked.
Having already heard about the Start Up Loan scheme (from Steve working on the original website for the scheme when it launched!), they started to look at funding options that would allow them a cash injection, which would enable them to rapidly expand their team and fuel their growth.
“We couldn’t take on more work and grow without taking on more people, so the finance was a route to quicker growth for us. It gave us the capacity to play that ‘business development role’ to grow the business, with that loan to fall back on and help us along if things don’t go as planned”
Deciding that a Start Up Loan was a sensible option to give them the investment they needed, they began their application after they were matched with Let’s Do Business Finance as their local Business Support Partner of the British Business Bank. Both Jim and Steve being so passionate about Shapes and their aim of the business, they found the application straightforward – supplying their projections and plans, and goals for the business.
“The application asked for things like our vision and what we’re excited about, and that was everything that we are all about - so the application was straightforward in that way. We even used the template supplied to apply, so it was good!”
With a bit of help from Business Manager Martin from Let’s Do Business Group, the team behind Shapes were able to submit their application and secure a tranched Start Up Loan of £40,000 in December 2023. With a cushion now firmly in place for the business, they were able to look ahead to making their first year of operations a successful one.
“The vision that Jim and Steve had for Shapes really shone through in their application. In my experience of helping businesses, this was a really interesting business idea and team to help secure finance – how their experience for accounting and marketing come together in harmony to create a really unique offering for businesses.”
As of the beginning of April 2024, they have 5 people on the payroll – 3 part time members of staff and Jim and Steve full time. A new full time accountant joins on 1st May, and they’ve just offered a role to a full time designer too! On top of this they also have two local students on a college placement to help with the marketing and accounting areas respectively – and are focused on helping their team prosper and do well in their careers, as well as drive forward the business.
The fun and creative office of Shapes includes a photo wall of their staff!
“The Start Up Loan has released the pressure on us and allowed us to grow in our own way, so we’re not scrambling for clients. It’s allowed us to do what we set out to – grow the business how we want to, taking on team members full time and others part time, and working on our core values along the way”
So far, the majority of their clients are based in Kent and scattered into London. They’re even working with previous clients from their old firms and Steve’s freelance career – working with several charities too to help them digitalise their processes, and well on their way to becoming a market leader in Kent. Not wanting to limit themselves, though, the pair think they’d be open to working with businesses all over the country if they can benefit from what Shapes has to offer.
Wanting to make a difference both to businesses and the communities they operate in, Shapes are also now the shirt sponsor for the Herne Bay Women’s Football Club, and are planning to expand their reach into the local community even more as they grow.
With the sky very much being the limit for where Shapes can go from here, this is what Jim and Steve had to say about their success so far and the future of the business:
“Shaping up nicely”
