2015 has been an epic year for Pragmatic. We’ve had the opportunity to work with exciting clients on some thrilling WordPress projects. We built and published 38 live WordPress websites. That is more than 3 a month! In response to our growing workload, we’ve more than doubled in size since 2014, which means we’ve had to move into roomier offices and restructure the way our team works.
How we’ve grown:
In 12 months we’ve grown from a team of 5 full-timers and 4 contractors to a team of 21 full-time employees and 3 contractors. That’s a growth of 167%!
We’ve illustrated below what has happened to our team over the year, in order of it happening.
Our empoyees:
Moving from in-house to agency was a big change but Pragmatic have welcomed me with open arms. Working with truly passionate and inspiring people allows me to thoroughly enjoy every day at work and the challenges that the role entails. – Ryan Golds, Junior WordPress Developer
We’ve also been working with the following key contractors:
Our highlights this year
February:
We hosted the first Brighton WordPress Contributor Day as part of WordUp Brighton.
@wordupbrighton well under way pic.twitter.com/zXkR5aBG3x
— Jenny Wong (@miss_jwo) February 28, 2015
March:
We reached over 500 installs on WPEngine!
It would appear that @pragmaticweb has reached 500 installs on @wpengine ! pic.twitter.com/0JK4YY3Cno
— James Morrison (@jamesmorrison) March 11, 2015
Our Founder & Director, David Lockie joined other WordPress business owners on the UK agency panel at WordCamp London.
Super proud to be on the UK agency panel at #wcldn next weekend with esteemed company http://t.co/qInAmyvFj2 pic.twitter.com/pLolGL9FpA
— divydovy (@divydovy) March 11, 2015
June:
The whole office (plus a few partners) went on a trip to Seville, Spain for WordCamp Europe.
Sat round a Sevillian table eating amazing Tapas and sharing many laughs with our ever-expanding team, I was reminded that we work with a ridiculously nice bunch of people! – Tom Chute, Team Leader
July:
We were recognised as one of the UK’s top web design companies.
Due to rapid growth, we restructured teams for efficiency. This included transitioning some of our team members into Team Leaders. Each team now has their own Senior Developer and Mid-Level Developer, and they also share our Project Management and Design departments amongst them. In 2016, we will have a Project Manager in each team as well, helping us stay organised and ensure we continue to deliver projects on time and budget.
September:
We’ve continued to provide our WordPress services to global clients, and to match we’ve now got a remote team of developers in Seville, Spain. Here’s our farewell lunch for Senior Developer Michael Bailey (in the orange t-shirt), who was our first developer to move to Spain to work for us remotely. Soon after, we hired our second remote developer in Seville.
We started our free WordPress Clinics which went down a storm with the local community. In September our first WordPress Clinic was as part of the Brighton Digital Festival Open Studios event.
October:
In October 2015, we transformed from a web development agency into a full-service WordPress agency when we expanded our team to include an in-house design department.
We became recognised Gold WooExperts – The only ones in the UK!
We became Bacardi’s WordPress Technology Partner. We worked with them on a project earlier in the year, which obviously impressed as we’re now their official WordPress Technology Partner! This means as well as creating new sites and providing support, we are also providing support and consultancy for strategic business activities. Find out more about our WordPress Technology Partnership services.
November:
We featured in the Brighton & Hove Independent.
We introduced new services:
- Discovery and definition – this consultancy service streamlines our management processes from the very beginning.
- Design – although we offered it before via our trusted partners, we now offer design services in-house spanning branding, graphics and web design.
We moved offices. We’re now in the heart of Seven Dials in a lovely converted period building.
December:
We’ve developed a dynamic web app for gift book publishers, I Am The Greatest. We will be publishing a case study soon.
We celebrated the end of the year with our Christmas party at The Caxton Arms.
What we have to look forward to in 2016:
- Two new starters are joining our Project Management team in January.
- We will be organising, hosting and sponsoring WordPress events throughout next year globally and in the local community.
- A team excursion to Vienna for WordCamp Europe.
- Lots of new WordPress projects with lovely new clients.