Frustrated with their prospecting results, long-time friends Ryan
Welmans and Rob Harlow come up with the idea of integrating social media with email
to create a more powerful lead generation tool.
2014
With the new discipline of “social prospecting” established, Sopro
(a contraction of the two words) was registered at Company’s House in June. Rob’s
brother Steve comes on board to manage Sales.
Sopro ends the year with one
employee and 10 customers.
2015
Ryan and Rob join Sopro full time, hiring Monika Joshevska to
establish an Operations team in Skopje, North Macedonia.
The year ends with 15 staff, an office in Skopje, £300,000 revenue and a plan to
double that revenue every year.
2016
The Client Services department is created to manage the growing
number of customers. The first developer is hired to support Rob. Staff numbers and
turnover double and the Skopje team move to a larger office.
The plan comes together.
2017
It’s a year of firsts. Our first UK office opens, in Brighton. Our
first B2B Expo attended. The first of our free prospecting tools available (which
planted the initial seed which would later grow into our first Saas platform.
With over 200 Clients, Sopro doubles its revenue to £1.25m.
2018
Campaign Magazine names Sopro the “Tech Company of the year”. As
Sopro emails its 1,000,000th prospect, Ryan and Rob start planning for a new
SaaS-based prospecting platform.
Sopro’s parent company begins its startup incubation programme, signing up car sales
platform GetItGone.com and sales service Pitch121. The year ends with a rooftop
celebration at Sopro’s Skopje HQ and a new Brighton Office for the UK team.
With over 400 clients, Sopro doubles its revenue to £2.5m.
2019
Sopro emails its 2,000,000th prospect just before Covid-19 hits the UK. The Brighton
and Skopje offices celebrate Sopro’s 5th Birthday party over Zoom. Sopro hires its
100th employee.
Development on Outbase, Sopro’s SaaS-based B2B email marketing platform begins.
Sopro doubles revenue to £5m.
2020
As Sopro hires its 200th employee and Covid restrictions are eased, Ryan & Rob fly
to Macedonia to meet 56 new starters.
The Founders Hub is launched with massive ambitions; to be the UK’s biggest free
peer-to-peer community for business founders and to further enhance the startup
incubation programme.
The Skopje team moves to its third office in Skopje’s equivalent of Piccadilly
Circus: Macedonia Square. Outbase is launched.
2021