What Changed
Rikki Lear and Mark Byrne, the Clitheroe founders who built a 50-person HubSpot agency, have returned to the industry with a new business venture named Imagine Growth. The new firm is a HubSpot-native revenue systems consultancy based in Whalley, Lancashire.
Imagine Growth launches as a team of four. The founding and operating team consists of co-founders Rikki Lear and Mark Byrne, alongside director Emma Lear and first employee Ishika Trivedi. Unlike their previous large-scale corporate environment, the new consultancy positions itself around a lean, senior-led operational model designed to leverage advanced artificial intelligence tools directly inside customer relationship management architecture.
Context
The founders previously established Digital 22 in Clitheroe back in 2013. Over nearly a decade, they scaled that enterprise into a 50-person HubSpot agency.
In January 2022, they sold Digital 22 to Avidly. Following the acquisition, Lear and Byrne stayed on to run the business for two years. By the time of their departure from that corporate structure, Avidly had grown to employ 460 people worldwide.
Reflecting on the transition back to entrepreneurship, Rikki Lear noted that after selling Digital 22, he initially was not sure if he would do it again. What he ultimately missed was the people and working with clients directly. According to Lear, the new venture represents that work done properly with four senior people, where the individuals who sell the work also build it, and no middlemen sit in between.
Technical and Business Explanation
Imagine Growth enters the market holding official partnership credentials. The firm operates as both a Gold HubSpot Solutions Partner and a Claude partner.
The core technical capability of the new venture centers on integrating HubSpot and Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude, into a unified system. This combined infrastructure is deployed for B2B companies operating across the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada.
Mark Byrne explained the market gap the consultancy aims to address, noting that most businesses have been told artificial intelligence will change everything, yet nobody shows them what that looks like inside their actual CRM. Building Claude into HubSpot allows the system to read the pipeline, flag deals at risk, and write follow-ups. Crucially, the operational framework maintains a human operator in charge of every decision.
Rikki Lear highlighted the efficiency gains of this technical setup, stating that with Claude handling heavy lifting inside HubSpot, a compact team of four can take on workloads that historically required a much larger headcount.
Sector Impact
The launch of Imagine Growth illustrates a broader evolution in agency models and technology consultancies. Rather than scaling headcounts into hundreds of employees, experienced founders are utilizing native artificial intelligence integrations to deliver high-capacity technical transformations with lean, senior-heavy teams.
By marrying HubSpot CRM capabilities with Anthropic’s Claude, the consultancy targets operational bottlenecks in B2B sales pipelines. Automated pipeline reading, proactive risk flagging, and AI-assisted drafting of follow-up communications represent a shift from passive data storage to active, AI-driven CRM management.
Business Implications
For B2B organizations in the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada seeking CRM optimization, the consultancy offers a streamlined alternative to traditional massive agencies. Clients deal directly with senior practitioners rather than account managers or junior staff.
Economically, the model demonstrates how foundational AI partnerships can alter professional services productivity. By deploying automated workflows that flag risky deals and draft administrative follow-ups, boutique consultancies can handle enterprise-grade client scopes with minimal internal staffing.
Risks and Limitations
While artificial intelligence integration increases operational throughput, reliance on automated pipeline analysis introduces execution risks if governance fails. Imagine Growth explicitly emphasizes that a human remains in charge of every decision, mitigating the danger of unmonitored AI output affecting client relationships or financial pipelines.
Additionally, as a startup launching with a core team of four, capacity constraints could naturally emerge if demand from international markets across the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada surges simultaneously.
What to Watch Next
Observers will monitor how effectively a four-person team leveraging Claude and HubSpot can scale its client roster across multiple international jurisdictions. Further developments will likely show whether this lean, AI-augmented consultancy model sets a new standard for former agency owners entering the modern B2B technology landscape.