Five years ago, Growthack was a lockdown experiment and a WordPress site Kevin built in an evening. Today, it’s a specialist SEO team working with B2B, eCommerce and SaaS brands across the UK and internationally – handling migrations, content systems, analytics integrity and technical SEO for complex websites.
In this anniversary episode of Beyond SEO, Glen sits down with Founder Kevin Kapezi and SEO Strategist Sarif Sarker to unpack:
- How Growthack went from solo consultant to specialist team.
- How a six-week intern became a full-time SEO Strategist.
- What this journey reveals about SEO, content and talent in 2025/26.
Kevin admits:
“I’m a person that often doesn’t reflect. I’m just go-go-go. So it’s nice to recognise five years in, and how far things have come.”
How Growthack Started in 2020
Growthack officially launched in 2020, in the middle of the COVID lockdown. At the time, Kevin was working full-time at Experian as their first SEO Specialist in the B2B team – a role he enjoyed, but one that moved at enterprise pace.
Before Experian, Kevin worked agency-side, where he met his former business partner. Together they decided to join forces: his partner handled advertising, Kevin handled SEO, and they built the business part-time on the side.
The name “Growthack” didn’t arrive easily. There were hours of scrolling through name generators and discarded ideas until something finally clicked. The logo was designed by Kevin’s nephew. The first website was built in one evening.
“I built the first website in an evening. We just got up and running.”
From there, the business grew through smaller clients where decision-making was fast and the impact was visible. That early bias towards ownership, pace and outcomes still shapes Growthack’s model today.
Sarif’s Journey: From Intern to Strategist
In early 2022, Sarif joined Growthack as a Content Marketing Intern. It was his first marketing role and his only job in SEO to date.
“This was my first role in marketing and my only job in SEO. I’ve been with Growthack for over two and a half years.”
During the initial six-week internship, he:
- Expanded and redesigned pages on the Growthack website.
- Wrote landing page copy and core website content.
- Implemented changes directly in WordPress.
- Supported structure and layout improvements across the site.
Crucially, Sarif wasn’t starting from zero. Before applying, he had already built his own websites and done small freelance projects. That initiative meant he could add value from day one.
Kevin recalls:
“Sarif literally created his own job. There wasn’t a role until he showed his potential and initiative.”
After the internship, Kevin offered him a part-time role as Junior Digital Marketing Executive, where he continued to do a bit of everything – SEO basics, content, design, and site improvements. Over time, that broad exposure became the foundation for a more strategic role.
Learning SEO the Only Way That Works: Doing It
Sarif didn’t learn SEO by bingeing blog posts or watching endless tutorials. He learned it by doing the work:
- Sitting in on client calls and listening to how Kevin handled migrations, rebrands and technical challenges.
- Supporting live projects – from simple on-page fixes to complex site structures.
- Balancing YouTube learning with real deadlines and real stakeholders.
Glen sums it up in the episode:
“When you work across more clients, more sectors, more problems — you grow. It’s something you only get through hands-on experience.”
As his skills grew, Sarif was promoted to SEO & Content Executive, and later to SEO Strategist. He now takes ownership of content and process end-to-end for multiple client accounts, not just individual tasks.
Content That Does More Than Drive Traffic
Inside Growthack, “content” is not a synonym for “blog posts” or “keywords”. It’s treated as a commercial asset that must support:
- User intent and decision-making.
- Revenue and pipeline, not just traffic.
- The wider marketing and sales strategy.
Sarif is direct about it:
“Content is more than traffic. Traffic doesn’t pay the bills. We have to think commercially and strategically.”
His role now spans the entire content lifecycle:
- Planning: understanding business priorities, campaigns and product focus.
- Design: mapping information architecture, internal linking and page purpose.
- Delivery: guiding copy, briefs and on-page optimisation.
- Improvement: iterating based on performance and stakeholder feedback.
The shift is from “publishing more” to “building a content system that mirrors how buyers actually evaluate complex offers”.
From “Background Guy” to Client-Facing Strategist
When Sarif first joined, he wanted to avoid client calls completely. He saw SEO as a behind-the-laptop discipline and was happy staying in the background.
“I didn’t want to speak to clients when I started. I told Kevin: just put me in the background role.”
Kevin respected that initially, steering him towards technical and content tasks. But over time he pushed Sarif gently into more exposure:
- Joining calls with marketing managers, CMOs and founders.
- Explaining recommendations live, not just in documents.
- Handling questions about risk, prioritisation and commercial impact.
Glen points out:
“The experience Sarif is gaining at his age goes beyond SEO. It’s learning how clients think, communicate, and make decisions.”
Today, Sarif is fully client-facing. He owns communication, expectations and delivery for multiple accounts – a long way from the intern who just wanted to “stay in the background”.
Why SEO Is 30–40% Technical and 60–70% Communication
A recurring theme in the episode is that technical skill, while essential, is not the main bottleneck anymore. Kevin puts it plainly:
“If you can’t explain the value of what you’re doing, those technical things never get implemented.”
Most organisations don’t suffer from a shortage of audits. They suffer from:
- Recommendations that never get shipped.
- Stakeholders who don’t understand trade-offs.
- Disconnects between SEO, product, content, CRO and CRM.
Adobe’s 2025 AI and Digital Trends report describes a widening gap between leaders who are deploying AI and data effectively, and organisations still struggling with fragmented systems and stalled execution. The story is similar in SEO: the value sits in the changes that ship, not in the PowerPoint.
That’s why Growthack emphasises communication as much as technical depth. The job is not just to find issues, but to:
- Translate them into language a CMO can take to the board.
- Align them with real business priorities and constraints.
- Navigate process, politics and resourcing so work actually happens.
From Bangladesh to Nottingham: An Introvert’s Path into Marketing
Sarif grew up in Bangladesh and moved to the UK in 2018. Like many students finishing GCSEs, he had to decide what to do next. Unsure where he fit, he literally Googled careers for introverts.
“I Googled ‘what careers are good for introverts’ — that’s how I found marketing.”
Initially, he imagined marketing as something you could do quietly behind a laptop. SEO appealed because it looked technical, analytical and “behind the scenes”. Over time, reality set in:
- SEO requires collaboration with developers, designers, writers and leadership.
- Client communication is as important as keyword research.
- Confidence is built through exposure, not theory.
Alongside his role at Growthack, Sarif is studying a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing at the University of Nottingham, combining academic theory with live client work – a combination that accelerates learning but also exposes the limitations of classroom-only knowledge.
Growthack as a Platform for Self-Development
When Kevin is asked what he’s most proud of after five years, he doesn’t start with revenue, awards or case studies. He talks about development – his own and the team’s.
“I came to the UK when I was 17. When you arrive in a new environment you have very low confidence. That self-development journey shapes you.”
Growthack exists because Kevin wanted more than a job. He wanted a place to:
- Take ownership rather than wait for permission.
- Build confidence by solving real problems.
- Create a role that evolves with the person, not just the org chart.
Now he’s building that environment for others. Sarif’s story is one example; there will be more. The pattern is clear: initiative is rewarded, and responsibility is handed over early.
From Doing Everything to Leading a Team
In the early years, Kevin handled every aspect of Growthack:
- Delivery and implementation.
- Client communication and reporting.
- Invoicing, operations and strategy.
He acknowledges how unsustainable that was:
“It’s not an efficient way to run a business. And the client doesn’t get the full benefit either.”
Over the last 18–24 months, that has changed. With Glen leading technical SEO and migrations, and Sarif owning much of the content and process, Growthack has shifted from “one person doing everything” to a small specialist team where:
- Technical depth is handled by people who live in the detail every day.
- Content and structure are treated as a system, not afterthoughts.
- Kevin can focus more on direction, partnerships and long-term growth.
That internal shift mirrors what many CMOs are being forced to do in their own teams: fewer generalists, more leverage from a small group of specialists with clear ownership.
What This Means for CMOs in 2026
The Growthack story sits against a broader backdrop of how marketing is changing.
1. Budgets Are Flat, Expectations Are Not
Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey shows that average marketing budgets fell to 7.7% of overall company revenue in 2024, down from 9.1% in 2023, and remained flat at 7.7% in 2025. (Gartner 2024) (Gartner 2025)
At the same time, the Content Marketing Institute reports that 46% of B2B marketers expect their content marketing budget to increase in 2025, with 41% expecting it to remain the same. (CMI, 2025 Content Marketing Statistics)
Net result: budgets as a share of revenue are flat, but expectations on SEO and content are rising. That’s exactly the environment where a lean, specialist model like Growthack’s makes sense – fewer people, more leverage.
2. Search Still Drives Brand Discovery
Despite the noise around AI, search remains central to discovery. HubSpot’s 2025 marketing statistics, drawing on DataReportal data, show that 32.9% of internet users aged 16+ discover new brands, products and services via search engines. (HubSpot Marketing Statistics, 2025)
In other words: how your site is structured, how your content system works, and how technically sound your platform is still directly influence how buyers find you.
3. AI Traffic Is Tiny but Growing – Fundamentals Still Matter
Ahrefs’ 2025 AI traffic research analysed around 35,000 websites and found that AI platforms currently drive just 0.1% of total referral traffic, compared with roughly 44% from search and a similar share from direct. (Ahrefs AI Traffic Research, 2025) Their AI SEO statistics confirm the same headline figure: AI makes up 0.1% of web referral traffic, even after rapid growth. (Ahrefs AI SEO Statistics, 2025)
For CMOs, the implication is simple:
- AI is changing how people search and compare, but it hasn’t replaced search engines as the primary driver of traffic.
- If your brand, product and CRO are weak, AI exposes that faster – in both search and AI surfaces.
- If your fundamentals are strong, AI becomes an amplifier, not a threat.
4. Execution, Not Ideas, Is the Real Gap
Adobe’s Digital Trends work highlights how fragmented data, siloed teams and slow decision-making are blocking organisations from realising the value of AI and data-driven marketing. (Adobe 2025 AI and Digital Trends)
The same pattern is visible in SEO:
- Most teams have more recommendations than capacity.
- The real differentiator is the ability to prioritise, communicate and implement.
- Specialists who can sit in the room with leadership and explain trade-offs are now worth more than a stack of audits.
That’s where Growthack’s story becomes relevant beyond one agency. It shows what happens when you combine:
- Technical depth (migrations, data, structure).
- Content systems aligned to commercial outcomes.
- People who are willing to grow from “background operators” into strategic partners.
Final Thoughts
Growthack’s five-year story isn’t just about building an agency. It’s about building people and systems that can survive tighter budgets, noisier channels and rising expectations.
From Kevin’s early days as a one-man consultant to Sarif’s journey from intern to strategist, the through-line is clear: ownership, initiative and communication are now as important as technical SEO.
And as the team emphasises in the episode, this is only the beginning.
Work With Growthack
Growthack helps B2B, eCommerce and SaaS brands:
- Plan and execute complex SEO migrations.
- Design content systems that support commercial outcomes, not just traffic.
- Fix data and tracking issues that block decision-making.
- Align SEO with brand, product, CRO and CRM to unlock sustainable growth.
The team only takes on clients where there is a genuine strategic fit on both sides.
If you’re leading a brand facing structural, content or data challenges – and you want a specialist team that operates beyond vanity metrics – get in touch.
