Meet our Co-Founder, Liam Nelson

How did you start off your career and how did that get you where you are now?

I always had an interest in computers even from my school days, this grew into building websites at college and I decided to study software engineering with Rob at uni. During my placement year, I took a software job and although I learnt a fair bit, working on the same system day after day got tedious. Rob and I went out for drinks and drunkenly decided to setup a side hustle building websites, so we registered Frogspark LTD in 2012 and it all started from there.
From 2012-2013 we managed to save enough cash to go full time, and the next few years were spent learning a lot about running a business like managing clients, dealing with the finance side of things. We knew we needed to hire staff to deal with the workload and in 2016 we got our first office, hired our first employees and started to grow!

From there it was a journey of growth, moving offices, growing the team to where we are today.

Throughout the years a lot of it was learning on the fly from mistakes made (there were a lot!) and all the experiences over the past 12 years have helped get me to where I am today.

What does an average day look like for you?

Every day is different, I always start by dropping my son Charlie off at nursery, getting to the office (I’m the weird guy that still goes to the office 5 days a week), I’ll open my laptop around 8, check emails and slack messages, action anything urgent and then start working through my todo list.

My day then usually involves supporting the account managers with any queries or issues, calls with clients, supporting with sales, checking over the finances to make sure we’re on track, discussing clients internally to see if we have any opportunities that can help them and so on… It’s a long day but it’s always varied.

What’s your favourite part of your job?

Completely cliche but… Seeing the great work the team do across web, SEO and PPC for clients and seeing the results and subsequent growth.

Least favourite part?

I tend to need to do a lot more reports and admin based things, which are absolutely needed but can be a bit mundane.

Looking back, what’s your favourite project you’ve been a part of?

There’s been quite a few over the years, one that springs to mind is from the early days is Kifi, a Silicon Valley startup. It was fantastic working with them, they had a great time and we helped them grow to eventually become acquired by Google.

Best advice you’ve ever received?

I think the best advice I’ve ever received was that you can’t do everything on your own, you need to hire talented people, and trust them, let them make mistakes and learn from them.

What was your “I’ve made it” moment in your career?

I can’t say that it’s happened yet, although it was definitely a strange feeling to go from 10-12 employees to now having 45-50.

Lastly, where can we find you at the weekend?

More than likely I’ll be out with my children, Charlie (nearly 3) and Alfie (nearly 1) at a park, soft play, or friends/families house trying to keep them entertained. On some rare occasions, we’ll manage to get a babysitter and go out for a few drinks!