Darren Fell, Managing Director, Crunch.co.uk,
Founder freelanceadvisor.co.uk

Fed up of years of corporate politics, Darren Fell decided to risk it all on building a top UK digital marketing agency, from scratch and with no investment.

He founded email marketing specialist Pure – which began life as a party portal – in 2001, when he realised that the online email and SMS technology element was scalable and would become an essential business tool for brands. Fast forward seven years and Pure is now the eleventh fastest growing new media company in the UK, according to investment bank GP Bullhound’s Media Momentum Top 50 2007, and named Best Small Business at the Sussex Business Awards 2006/07. Darren won Entrepreneur of the Year at the same ceremony in 2007/08, and also made the shortlist for 02 / Arena magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year competition.

Opportunities are rarely missed and his favourite pastime is doing the seemingly impossible – taking on huge corporate competitors and winning customers in direct pitches. Darren has taken Pure – which employs 43 people and has over 800 clients including innocent drinks, Financial Times and Rightmove – to the point of sale and is now working on his next venture.

Online accounting system Crunch.co.uk is due to launch in 2008; revolutionising the accounting world for contractors and freelancers. Freelanceadvisor.co.uk has been set up by Darren as a sister site, to help freelancers and contractors set up and work more efficiently.

Prior to setting up Pure in 2001, Darren worked in advertising as e-Commerce Director for Bates Australia. He was also a shareholder in online start-up Frontier, the internet services company, which was later sold to internet service provider Mistral.

Although Darren was born in Oxford, his family then moved to Sussex, where he grew up in Littlehampton with his two sisters. Darren now lives in Brighton.

A champion of Brighton and the homegrown digital businesses the city is famous for, Darren actively supports as many as he can in his quest to help Brighton become the new media capital of the UK.

Press and other links
Winner: Entrepreneur of the Year
Interview with Darren (2007)