We're pleased to welcome Tom Wood to the Akcela team as a Partner.
Tom co-founded Foolproof in Norwich in 2002 alongside Peter Ballard. Together, they grew it from a small Norwich operation into a 200+ person international UX design agency before a successful exit in 2016. That journey — nearly two decades of building, hiring, navigating crises, and ultimately selling — gives Tom a perspective that few people in the regional ecosystem can match.
What Tom learned building Foolproof
The Foolproof story is one of the most instructive in Norwich's business history — not because it was easy, but because it was hard in all the ways that matter for the founders Akcela supports today.
Tom and Peter started Foolproof at a time when user experience design was barely recognised as a discipline. They had to build a market, not just a company. That meant educating clients, proving the value of UX research, and competing against established agencies in London while operating from Norwich — a city that most of their early clients had never visited for a business meeting.
Over nearly 20 years, they navigated every stage of company growth: the early years of doing everything themselves, the hiring challenges of scaling beyond the founding team, the complexity of opening international offices, the management demands of a 200+ person organisation, and eventually the process of selling the company.
That full-lifecycle experience is what makes Tom's contribution to Akcela so valuable. Most business advisers have expertise in one phase of growth. Tom has been through all of them — and in each case, from a Norwich base. The lessons he shares with portfolio companies aren't generic. They're grounded in the specific reality of building a company from this region.
What Tom brings to Akcela founders
Tom's experience is in the things that matter most to early-stage founders: building the right team, creating a culture that retains talent, managing the relationship between product and business strategy, and knowing when to push and when to pause.
He's also an active angel investor in the Norwich startup ecosystem. That dual perspective — founder and investor — is invaluable for portfolio companies as they prepare to raise. Tom understands what investors look for because he is one, and he understands what founders need because he was one for two decades.
At Akcela, Tom works directly with portfolio companies on the foundational decisions that shape a company's trajectory. These aren't the decisions that make headlines — they're the ones about who to hire first, how to structure a founding team, when to say no to a customer, and how to build something that lasts beyond the initial excitement of launching.
Building from Norwich
One of the most important signals Tom's involvement sends is that world-class companies can be built from Norwich. Foolproof's journey from a small Norwich office to a 200+ person international agency — without relocating to London — is proof that geography doesn't have to be a limitation.
For founders in the Akcela portfolio who wonder whether they need to move to London to be taken seriously, Tom's experience is the answer. You don't. What you need is the right product, the right team, and the right support structure. That's what Akcela's incubation programme provides.
Across the portfolio, Akcela-incubated companies have now raised over £2.2 million in investment and secured more than £435,000 in grant funding. Tom's experience strengthens what we can offer every company in the incubator as that portfolio continues to grow.
If you're building a tech-enabled company in Norfolk, apply to the programme or get in touch. You can also learn more about what a business incubator does or explore SEIS investment as a funding route.
Welcome, Tom.
