Why Business Founders Make the Best Marketers

When you’re choosing a marketing partner, experience matters, but not just the kind you find in pitch decks. The best marketers aren’t always those who started out in agency life. More often, they’re the ones who’ve sat in your chair, made the tough calls, balanced the books, and built something from the ground up.

Marketing isn’t just about campaigns, channels, and conversions, it’s about understanding how businesses actually grow.

As founders, we've lived that journey ourselves. We’ve built teams, scaled companies, juggled the sleepless nights of cashflow forecasting, and made decisions that either spark growth or stall it. That lived experience brings commercial awareness and intuition you can’t replicate in a classroom or corporate role.

At Ouma, you don’t just get an 'agency team'. You get three founders who have built, scaled, and sold businesses, bringing that experience into every strategy we deliver.

Founders Think Differently

Most agencies will sell you the dream through a senior professional, then hand you off to a junior team member to manage your account. At Ouma, that’s not how it works. We’re hands-on, involved from start to finish, and your business is never treated like a box-ticking exercise.

Why? Because founders think commercially. We know growth isn’t just about running an ad campaign or posting on Instagram. It’s about auditing the entire workflow, spotting inefficiencies, and making changes that create momentum across every part of the business.

When you’ve lived the reality of building and scaling a company, you bring a different level of accountability. You don’t just 'do marketing' - you align marketing with sales, systems, people, and long-term growth.

Ross: Tech, Systems & Relentless Ambition

Ross founded Ouma in 2016 after becoming frustrated with how fragmented and inconsistent agencies were. A self-taught web builder at just 15, he’s built over 100 websites, become a Wix Legend, and won several awards for his innovations. Ross' expertise in automation, CRM, and digital infrastructure means he doesn’t just look at marketing, he engineers the systems that make growth scalable. Beyond Ouma, Ross is a serial entrepreneur and even trains with the GB Bobsleigh Team, proof of his relentless drive and ambition.

Rhys: Strategy, Scale & Commercial Acumen

Rhys brings over a decade of experience in SEO, digital strategy, and scaling businesses. After managing marketing for household brands like Pandora, he founded his own agency, growing it to over £1m revenue before successfully exiting.

He’s since managed multi-million-pound budgets and helped tech start-ups scale nationally. At Ouma, Rhys focuses on strategic growth, financial control, and operational excellence, ensuring clients achieve results that last long after the campaign ends.

Rachel: Growth Through Creativity & Resilience

Rachel started her entrepreneurial journey by building an award-winning cake business in her teens, turning it into a sustainable livelihood at just 18 before pivoting into launching Ouma alongside Ross.

Today, as a nationally recognised entrepreneur, winning Great British Entrepreneur of the Year and mentoring with The King's Trust, Rachel brings that creativity and resilience and turns it into grounded strategy - she thrives on analysing data and understanding human psychology to craft market-leading campaigns.

When you work with Ouma, you don’t just get a team that knows marketing, you get founders who know business.

• We’ve made the tough calls in our own companies, so we understand yours.

• We see the bigger picture - from finances to workflows to culture, and we know how marketing ties into it.

• We stay hands-on. Unlike traditional agencies where senior leaders pitch and juniors deliver, we remain directly involved in your strategy and execution.

Our values, Excellence, Trust, Ambition, aren’t words on a wall. They’re principles we live by, and our clients feel that in every project, plan, and partnership.

Daniel Kittow, MD at Vibrant Energy Matters -

"Working with Ouma has been a completely different experience compared to other agencies I’ve dealt with. Typically, you get sold the dream by a senior staff member, only to be handed over to juniors who can’t deliver the same level of strategy or insight. With Ouma, it’s the exact opposite. The business leaders at Ouma stay directly involved in the deliverables, bringing the experience and perspective of business founders who have built and scaled companies themselves. They are more than a marketing supplier, they operate like an extension of our leadership team, almost like a hired CMO. That partnership approach has been transformational for us, helping us not just market smarter, but grow stronger as a business.” 

Founders make the best marketers because they understand the stakes. Every decision, every campaign, every investment in growth matters, not just for today, but for the future of the business.

At Ouma, we’re not just here to run your marketing. We’re here to help you build momentum, transform your operations, and scale with confidence in the support you're receiving.

Because when your partners are founders, you don’t just get marketers. You get people who know what it takes to lead.