Web agency Angry Creatives history of Angry Creative
The story of Sweden’s leading WordPress and WooCommerce web agency.
Angry Creative is Sweden’s leading digital agency specializing in WooCommerce and WordPress. Here are some of the milestones we have passed in journey to where we are today.
2005
E-commerce from the dormitory
While a student, Jimmy Rosén supplemented his limited income by launching an e-commerce business from his dormitory. He purchased discounted overstock and resold it online. The venture eventually faltered as it outgrew its initial limitations, necessitating significant investments in warehousing and logistics beyond the capacity of his student accommodations.
2006
Jimmy falls for WordPress
Jimmy helps friends and acquaintances with their websites and blogs. A tip from a friend introduced him to WordPress, a user-friendly blogging and content management system (CMS) that he recognized, with some creative adaptation, could be transformed into a powerful website publishing platform.
2007
Angry Creative is founded
After his e-commerce venture, Jimmy realised that he was good at business development and digital marketing. He decided to use his skills alongside his studies to help business clients succeed and look good online. No sooner said than done, Angry Creative was founded and WordPress became the publishing tool Jimmy championed.
2009
Angry Creative becomes Jimmy’s full-time job
After completing his studies, Jimmy graduated right into the rampant recession. Jimmy spat in his fist and decided to go all in on Angry Creative. Jimmy set a turnover target and told himself that if he got there, he would continue, and if not, he would move from Norrköping and look for a “regular” job, because in Norrköping there were very few jobs in web.
2010
Mission: Accomplished!
Jimmy reaches his turnover goal in krona and therefore continues the journey with Angry Creative.
First office
The company moves to Norra Promenaden together with Kafit AB, a small IT company that worked with IP telephony, support and other IT solutions.
2011
Angry Creative starts hiring
The recession has prompted companies to look at more cost-effective alternatives to proprietary publishing systems and this allows Angry Creative to flourish. After landing his first major project, Jimmy takes the plunge and starts hiring.
Office move
Since it was time to hire, there was also an office move. The company moves into premises on Gamla rådstugugatan in Norrköping. 55 square meters all to ourselves!
2012
We organize our first meetup
We organize our first WordPress meetup with great success. About 150 people come to us in Norrköping and talk WordPress. Very fun and successful!
We start with WordPress management
We see that almost no other web agency that works with WordPress thinks about the longer perspective. We start designing a management offer with the goal of always being best-in-class in our market.
2013
We organize our second meetup
After last year’s success, we organize another major meetup. About 120 people come to Norrköping this time and talk WordPress.
We are named young company of the year in Norrköping
We are named by the entrepreneurs in Norrköping as the best young company of the year in Norrköping. We thank and bow for the honor!
We start working with WooCommerce
We complete our first major WooCommerce assignment: A subscription service where you get a box of products at regular intervals.
2014
We organize our first WordCamp
We organize our first official WordCamp, which is an “official” industry event and must comply with the WordPress foundation’s rules. About 170 people show up and talk about all things WordPress-related.
Office relocation
Angry Creative is now 5 people and with more on the way, and our 55 square meters are starting to feel very cramped. We are therefore moving to Bråddgatan 7. We wonder if we will ever be able to be so many that we fill up all 160 square meters we just got.
2015
We organize our second WordCamp
We organize our second official WordCamp, which is an “official” industry event and must comply with the WordPress foundation’s rules. About 150 people show up and talk about all things WordPress-related.
2016
WooCommerce silver partner
We become the first Swedish company to be able to call ourselves a WooCommerce partner.
We divide ourselves into teams
The company grows and it is no longer possible to gather everyone in one big team. We start to divide into smaller teams to avoid unnecessary disruptions.
We start taking responsibility for hosting
As our customers expect us to take full responsibility for their application we can no longer rely on the delivery of our hosting partners. Our sister company Synotio is formed and invests heavily in infrastructure. The amount of downtime is reduced by 95%.
Office relocation
Angry Creative has now grown to 12 employees with more on the way, and it is getting very busy in our small premises. We are therefore moving to new, larger premises at Bråddgatan 11 in Norrköping. We will have 475 square meters of space to stretch our legs. Surely that will be enough?
2017
WooCommerce gold partner
We are the only Swedish company to become a WooCommerce gold partner.
We are nominated for Ambassador of the Year in Norrköping
Together with Kolmården Zoo and the Bråvalla Festival, we are nominated as this year’s ambassadors for Norrköping.
New office: Malmö
Angry Creative opens up a branch in Malmö and starts hiring developers and holding community events here as well.
2018
We hire our first designer
After many years of working only with development and selected design partners, we become an in-house designer for the first time.
2019
We launch our first product
We release our first product, Qala E-commerce. Qala is the collection of all our experiences from our E-commerce projects and is a perfect starting point for an E-trader who wants to scale their business to multiple markets, languages and currencies – without having to make all the common mistakes.
Gazelle and Super Company – for the second year in a row!
For the second year in a row, we are named both Gazelle Company by Dagens Industri and Super Company by Veckans Affärer. Fantastic fun!
2020
The corona pandemic affects everyone, including us
The pandemic is spreading across the world and everyone has to adapt, we are learning to become a more distributed company with remote work and staff in many different locations. Nothing should stop us from doing an excellent job for our customers.
We are moving to nice new premises on Drottninggatan in Norrköping
We are growing like crazy! With 34 employees on 475 sqm, the space is no longer enough and we are moving to new nice premises on Drottninggatan in Norrköping. How long will 909 square meters last?
In connection with the move, our Malmö office is also closed down as many of our employees have chosen to change careers or move and work from the head office.
Angry Creative buys Pragmatic
We’re barely halfway through the year and lots of exciting things are happening.
Angry Creative is buying Pragmatic, one of the UK’s best-known WordPress agencies, which has faced major challenges with Corona and Brexit.
During the year, Pragmatic becomes Angry Creative UK. We’re keeping what’s great about Pragmatic and combining the best of both companies to create a larger, multinational WordPress and WooCommerce specialist.
From 30 to 60!
We started the year with just over 30 people in the agency. With our own strong growth and with the purchase of Pragmatic (which was a little over 20 people), we grew to around 60 people.
We join WordPress VIP
With the purchase of Pragmatic, the proportion of customers who work primarily editorially and not only with e-commerce increases. WordPress VIP is Automattic’s platform for editorial WordPress platforms with enormously high traffic volumes, where only the top WordPress agencies working with editorial websites in the world are invited to join.
Gazelle and Super Company – for the third year in a row!
For the third year in a row, we are named both Gazelle Company by Dagens Industri and Super Company by Veckans Affärer. We are of course very happy for these awards.
We are becoming a “real” company with rocket speed
The growth of the company creates all the normal functions that one imagines exist in a company, and they are now performed by dedicated departments.
During the year we create the Management Team, HR Department, International Finance Department, and the first embryo of an International Marketing Department.
2021
We are now a remote-first company
As the company has gained a lot of new international customers during the year and we hire from the UTC – 1h time zone, we now dare to call ourselves a remote-first company.
During the year, we took the opportunity to organize ourselves in a way that significantly increases efficiency and reduces stress for each individual in the company. This was very much needed to prepare for future growth – in 2021, the number of employees is not growing as our organization of <30 people was not compatible with an organization of >60 people.
We become a hybrid agency and increase the pace of innovation and customer value
In our new size, it is easier to identify trends among our clients. This makes us more product-oriented even around details, and our innovation rate increases significantly.
In short, the amount of things we can reuse between customers increases, which increases the value we can deliver to each customer for every krona.
During the year, we are producing a solution for hyper-fast images(Qala imgproxy), our solution for working with multiple markets in WooCommerce(Qala Multimarket), and more. Gutenberg will now be our default editor as we believe it has matured enough for all client projects.
Gazelle and Super Company – for the fourth year in a row!
For the fourth year in a row, we have been named both a Gazelle company (now “Mästargaseller”) by Dagens Industri and a Super Company by Veckans Affärer. We are of course very happy for these awards.
We hire external CEO, Rustan Håkansson
We hire Rustan Håkansson, previously COO at Nodeone (Scandinavia’s largest Drupal provider) as external CEO.
Rustan has previously been hired as a consultant in rounds since 2011 to improve the business, and will now have a leading role in helping to shape the organization so that the daily operational work flows as well as possible.
Our former CEO Jimmy Rosén will instead focus on our innovation work.
2022
War in Europe!
War in Europe causes uncertainty, soaring inflation and increased tensions around the world.
This means that our growth, which has been sustained since the company was founded, comes to a halt. The focus is instead on increasing our operational efficiency.
Jimmy takes back the CEO role
We change our focus from growth and invest in our packaged WordPress and WooCommerce platform Qala.
Qala increases our operational efficiency in certain parts of our projects while significantly increasing value to customers.
Our business model is changing from being more consultant-driven to being an organization with primarily senior employees with very long experience.
2023
From 60 to 40!
With a declining market and a major focus on operational efficiency and productization, much of the work for non-senior employees is disappearing. We therefore reduce in size as our efficiency increases.
We set up a digital marketing company
We set up the digital marketing agency Cyntora as a way to work with both existing and new customers’ marketing so that you can not only buy the platform but also get the best possible return from it.
The operational manager will be Dennis Theux, who ran the Youtube channel “Lek med oss”, one of Sweden’s largest Youtube channels for children.
2024
We acquire Bishop Media
We acquire the web agency Bishop Media in Norrköping. Bishop Media has long worked on making really nice marketing websites at good prices, and is really good at it.
Angry Creative has primarily made larger and more complex e-commerce websites, but with this acquisition, Angry’s platform Qala can be taken out to smaller companies as well, and our product development gets a completely new type of feedback we have not seen before.
We acquire Kunskapat & the agency behind it
We acquire the wonderful team behind Kunskapat, an e-commerce that sells educational posters.
Unfortunately, the e-commerce became a bit narrow and became difficult to live on, and therefore it was instead that they performed agency services. As it happens, these customers needed the services Bishop, Cyntora & Angry did, so we fit like a glove together. Great times!
Ann-Sofie starts in Angry, Mikael in Cyntora and we will continue to run the e-commerce on our own platform Qala.
We acquire Awesem ltd
Awesem, an agency specializing in migrations, is acquired. The client base and the part of the team that meets our stringent skills requirements are integrated into the business.
Major advances in automation
As part of our drive to become more like a product company, we are investing a lot of time and money in automating our least skilled day-to-day tasks. Combined with AI, this increases our efficiency enormously, especially as we only have senior employees.