Growth Marketing for Startups and Small to Medium Businesses
Trusted by well over 100 startups, Rise is a collective of senior UK channel specialists, deployed under one strategic lead.
No retainers, no account managers, no juniors learning on your budget. The transparent, flexible alternative to a Growth Marketing Agency.
Trusted by
The collective
We're a collective of London and UK-based growth marketing experts, hand-picked and coordinated by experienced growth marketer Barri Coen.
We’re the alternative to a growth marketing agency or a growth hacking agency. We’re a hands-on, tactical consultancy and outsourced marketing team - offering strategic and executional resource.
All the benefits of growth marketing agencies or hiring specialist freelancers, but with none of the downsides.
How we work
We'll help you to dedicate resource and budget only where it's best utilised, so no need for expensive marketing agencies or mismatched marketing personnel.
If you pivot, so do we.
And we’re not typical consultants. We’ll provide full strategic and tactical marketing support, including a comprehensive, 100% bespoke, actionable growth marketing strategy.
We don't just focus on the top of the funnel either. We work closely with your tech & dev teams to optimise the full customer journey, whilst managing creative, data-driven marketing campaigns.
01
Start with a call
Thirty minutes with a Growth Marketing expert, not a sales team. Tell us what you're trying to grow and how fast; we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people to get you there — and if we're not, we'll say so.
02
Plan before spend
Most engagements start with a planning phase, shaped to where you are — pre-launch or scaling. We work out what each channel can realistically deliver for you and what to do first, as a small fixed-price project. Already know exactly what you need — say, someone senior on Meta Ads? We skip straight to step three.
03
Specialists deployed
The plan decides the channels; the channels decide the team. Senior specialists — only the ones you actually need — working under one strategic lead. No account managers, no juniors, no bench you're paying for but not using.
04
Flexible Growth
Transparent reporting against what we said we'd deliver, and specialists scaled up or down as the data comes in. No fixed retainers, so we're kept on because it's working, not because you're locked in. Our longest-running client is in year five.
Specialised channels, run by channel specialists
Paid search
Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and OpenAI Ads built around your unit economics, not vanity metrics. Managed by senior PPC specialists.
SEO and content
Technical fixes, content that ranks for commercial terms, and a roadmap you can hold us to.
Email and CRM
Lifecycle campaigns and CRM setup that turn one-off buyers into repeat revenue.
Conversion rate optimisation
More revenue from the traffic you already have. Research-led testing, not guesswork.
Data and measurement
Analytics, attribution and reporting you can trust before you spend another pound on ads.
Social media ads
Paid social across Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and Snap. Creative tested at pace, spend held to the same unit economics as every other channel.
Affiliates and partnerships
Publisher and partner programmes that pay on results, not promises. Sourced, negotiated and managed end to end.
Business development
Signal-based outbound that lands with the right buyers at the right moment. Built, run and refined by senior specialists, not sent from a template.
AI and automation
AI put to work across every channel: more creative produced and tested, faster analysis, automated reporting and workflows that multiply what a senior specialist can deliver."
Strategy and planning
Go-to-market plans, roadmaps, forecasting, channel prioritisation and budget allocation, matched to your stage — pre-launch, launching or scaling. The thinking that decides where every pound goes and what to do first.
THE PROOF
Queue-Fair
From near-zero to market challenger, against funded incumbents.
Virtual waiting room SaaS
Five years as their growth engine — paid search and SEO at the core, with outbound, CRO, review platforms and marketplace launches built around them.
Monthly conversions up 5x since 2023 · Monthly traffic up 8x since 2021
SELECTED WORK
Real clients, real numbers
Home Management | PropTech | App
We stopped buying installs and started buying users who stay.
A brand-new app, no marketing team, three ad channels with no history. Installs were cheap and worthless — so we rebuilt the funnel around people who actually set up their household, and let the cost per install rise.
Some numbers:
30% → 69% install-to-account · Cost per account down 40%
Membership Body | Education | Web
From incremental growth to applications tripling in a year.
The World Experience Organization's membership was stagnating. We audited the function, rebuilt the roadmap, and stripped the friction out of the application funnel.
Some numbers:
Membership applications up 200% YoY · Revenue up 60% YoY
Driving Lessons | Marketplace | Web
Compounding 10–18% growth, every month, into the next funding round.
We led growth in-house: cross-channel acquisition against aggressive targets, with CPA falling and unit economics improving as volume scaled — through to acquisition by The AA.
Some numbers:
10–18% monthly growth in users and revenue · 300,000+ learners across products
What our clients say
A growth marketing agency for startups, without the agency model
Most startups hit the same wall. The freelancer who got you this far can't cover every channel, but a traditional growth marketing agency means retainers, account managers and junior staff doing the actual work. Rise sits in the gap: a growth marketing collective of senior UK specialists, each expert in one channel, deployed only where your growth plan needs them.
How the collective works
Every engagement is led by one strategist who has taken startups from near-zero to seven figures. Behind that lead sits a bench of channel specialists in paid search, SEO, CRO, email and analytics. You get the coordination of an agency and the seniority of hand-picked freelancers, without paying for either's overheads.
Built for startups and scale-ups
We work with UK startups, scale-ups and SMEs that need measurable growth on a budget that has to justify itself. There are no fixed retainers. Most engagements begin with a planning phase — an audit, a marketing forecast and a growth roadmap — so spend goes to the channels most likely to move revenue, not to whatever an agency happens to sell.
A growth marketing consultant with a full team behind them
If you've been searching for a growth marketing consultant, a digital marketing consultancy, a fractional head of growth or a growth marketing agency for startups, the honest answer is that you probably need parts of all of them.
That's the model Rise was built around. Based in London and Hertfordshire, working with clients across London, the UK and around the world.
Frequently asked questions
What is a growth marketing collective?
A group of senior freelance specialists who work together under one strategic lead. You get multi-channel coverage like an agency, but every person on your account is a senior practitioner in their channel.
How is Rise different from a growth marketing agency?
No retainers, no account managers, no juniors. Specialists are deployed by channel and by project, and the strategy is led directly by our founder rather than handed down through layers.
How do engagements start?
With a call with Barri, Rise's founder — not a sales team. From there, most clients take a small fixed-price planning project first, where we work out what each channel can realistically deliver and what to do in what order. If you already know what you need — say, senior management of your Meta Ads — we skip straight to deploying the right specialist.
What kind of companies do you work with?
UK startups, scale-ups and SMEs — usually companies that have outgrown a single freelancer but can't yet justify full agency costs. Our longest-running client grew from near-zero to seven figures with us.
How much does it cost to work with Rise?
Planning projects are fixed-price, typically between £750 and £1,500 + VAT depending on scope. Ongoing work is priced by the specialists and hours your plan actually needs, with no fixed retainers or minimum terms. You'll always know the price before anything starts.
Should I hire a freelancer, an agency, or something in between?
It depends on how many channels you need. One channel, one good freelancer works. Three or four channels need coordination a freelancer can't provide — but a traditional agency means retainers and junior staff doing the work. Rise is the in-between: senior freelance specialists per channel, coordinated under one strategic lead.
How quickly will we see results?
Honestly: it varies by channel. Paid media can show signal within weeks, though platforms need a learning period after any major change. SEO compounds over months, not days — our longest-running client's organic traffic was still accelerating in year five. Any agency promising specific results in thirty days is telling you what you want to hear.
Do you work with businesses that haven't launched yet?
Yes, regularly. Pre-launch companies skip the audit and start with a forecast and go-to-market plan instead — which channels to launch on, in what order, and what they should cost. We've taken products from zero to market challenger, so starting from nothing is familiar territory.
Where is Rise based?
Our HQ is based in Hertfordshire, just north of London, and we work with small to medium businesses, startups and scale-ups across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
However, our collective members are located all over the UK - in Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. We also have specialists based in France, Spain, the USA, Canada and Israel. Engagements run remotely with regular calls, with in-person sessions available for London-area clients.
Which channels do you cover?
All the channels a growth plan is likely to need. Because our collective consists of over 30 channels specialists, we can be genuinely channel agnostic, unbiased and only recommend the activities that are relevant for your business.
Acquisition: paid search, paid social across Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and Snap, LinkedIn Ads, app store advertising and ASO, affiliates and partnerships, business development and outbound email, PR and digital outreach, review platforms like G2, and out of home. Organic: SEO, technical and content. Conversion and retention: CRO and landing pages, email, CRM and lifecycle marketing. Underneath it all: data and measurement (analytics, attribution, reporting), AI and automation, and growth strategy and planning. Each channel is run by a senior specialist in that channel — the plan decides which ones your business actually needs.
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