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We built the agency we always wanted to work at

In 2025, we stopped waiting. Here's how two agency lifers ended up building a specialist home for Wix.

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The team playing pool in the Maidstone office
2025Founded by Joe and Karl
2 → 9Team growth, year one
1Platform. No exceptions.

Joe and Karl haven't just worked in agencies. They've run them.

Karl Cowell cut his teeth agency-side as a social media manager, web designer and graphic designer, then went on to run his own bar and gin brand, picking up years of management experience across sectors along the way.

Joe Bennett built his career in marketing agencies too, specialising in SEO, Meta Ads and Google Ads, before running his own successful digital marketing agencies, after starting out in customer service and software testing.

Between them: two people who'd actually built and run businesses, not just worked inside them. And one pattern kept repeating.

Agency after agency wanted new sites built in WordPress or Webflow, whether or not it was actually the right tool for the job.

Both platforms are good. That was never the issue. The issue was that Joe and Karl were faster, sharper and simply better at building in Wix, particularly in Wix Studio. Every WordPress or Webflow build took longer than it should have, and the results never quite matched what they knew they could deliver on a platform they understood inside out.

So in 2025, they rebranded as The Wix Guys: a specialist agency built entirely around one platform, for business owners who want to keep working in Wix rather than get talked into switching to something unfamiliar. A proper home for Wix specialism, not a generalist agency that happens to offer it as one option among many.

The market backed the idea straight away. Within a year, Wix named both Joe and Karl in its first class of Wix Leaders, two of only three in the UK and 19 in the world. See the results for yourself in our case studies and portfolio.

What we stand for

Our values

1

Helping the S in SME

We exist for the small businesses, not just the medium ones. The smallest, scrappiest clients get the same care and attention as the bigger accounts.

We've supported CICs, charities and small businesses to get themselves online, often on the tightest of budgets. We've helped people made redundant turn that setback into their own business. Some of the best ideas we see come from people with no budget to go to a big agency: chefs, artists and photographers who've taken a genuine passion and turned it into a livelihood.

They're not always the accounts that make the most sense on paper. They're exactly why we exist.

2

Do the right thing

We choose honesty over ease, even when it costs us. Good advice beats a quick sale, every time.

We've had people come to us with a website they'd already built themselves, doing a genuinely good job of it, and ask for a full redesign. Often what they actually need is a fix and SEO package, not a rebuild, so that's what we tell them. We've had people planning a Wix build when their business would be better served by Shopify or a custom solution, and we've said so, even though it meant losing the job.

One person came to us with their last £100, wanting it spent on an SEO package. We told them that wasn't going to fix their problem and that the money would go further elsewhere. We could have taken it. Taking it wouldn't have been right.

3

Family comes first

Work matters, but it doesn't come before the people we love. We build a business that supports our lives, not one that swallows them.

Over the holidays, a few of the team brought their kids into the office. They sat in, helped out, did their own little "jobs" around the place while mum or dad worked. No fuss, no asking permission twice. Just: bring them in, we'll figure it out.

Joe and Karl have both been messed about by employers in the past when it came to having kids. They swore they'd never do that to anyone who worked with them. Nine people now, hopefully more to come, but the size of the team was never going to change what we stand for.

4

Pirate mentality

We're scrappy, resourceful and unafraid to break convention to get results. Rules exist to be questioned, not followed blindly.

We run talks and put out content that helps people build their own Wix websites, for free. Being The Wix Guys doesn't mean people have to use us. If you've got the skills but not the budget or time, we'll help you build it yourself. If you want to do it properly and go up against the big players, we're here for that too.

Be scrappy until you can be brilliant.

5

Embrace new tech, increase value

We stay ahead of the curve on tools and tech so our clients get more value, not less. Standing still isn't an option.

We use AI across our own workflows, from taking notes in meetings so the team can give clients their full attention, to a purpose-built SEO machine that scrapes hundreds of data points to decide what actually moves the needle. None of it overshadows the expertise of our team. That extra output gets passed on to you as value, not swallowed into our profit margins.

Tech doesn't replace the team, it empowers them.

Recognised by Wix

Where the story has led so far

Karl and Joe were named in Wix's first ever class of Wix Leaders. There are only 19 in the world and just three in the UK, and two of those three are from The Wix Guys.

Wix Leaders are hand-picked by Wix for their expertise, their work with the community and the results they get on the platform. It means when you work with The Wix Guys, your site is being built by two of the people Wix itself points to.

Work with us →See Wix's announcement ↗

Come and see us

Where it all happens

Most of our clients never need to visit, we work with businesses all over the world by phone and Google Meet. But if you'd rather do it face to face, the kettle's on.