Galactic Fed has always been an unconventional company. Our roots began in the growth hacker and digital nomad movements, of which co-founders Zach Boyette and Irina Papuc are early pioneers.
Zach is an ex-Googler, software engineer, and big-picture growth guy, while Irina is an ex-CERN physicist with a rocket scientist approach to SEO marketing.
They met at $1B+ fully distributed startup Toptal, first as remote colleagues for months and eventually meeting at an offsite in Florida. Irina had bleached her hair completely white in protest of some political movement, and Zach was sunburnt from his recent summer months train hopping around Europe.
In between team water gun fights, jet ski rides, and whiteboard growth sessions, Zach and Irina bonded over a rebellious attitude towards the marketing world, the idea that the industry was due for a redesign, and a desire to do things a little (or a lot) different. Oh, and sci-fi books. They also shared an obsession with location independence: why live anywhere, when you could live everywhere? Zach was in the middle of his 12-month, 12-country worldwide sprint with Remote Year, while Irina and her partner were bouncing between Malaysia, London, Chicago, and other assorted skylines. Zach and Irina realized that you could run successful marketing teams anywhere in the world, and had put it to the test – taking work calls from mountaintops in Iceland, Mexican beaches, Moroccan riads, and Vietnamese street cafes.
After concluding at Toptal, Irina and Zach both had clear next plans of scaling their marketing talents to the big games: agency life. It was a natural fit for them to combine their powers: Zach as the paid media wizard, and Irina as the oracle of SEO. They quickly scaled up a nascent team of growth hacking nerds from around the world, with an early belief in the power of remote work: why be limited by borders, when you could get the top talent wherever they are in the world?
Cue the fireworks. The early days were a grind: 80 hour weeks in foreign apartments, polishing a 100-page employee handbook (an early nod to our Galactic Fed Way); learning to train and manage remote teams; developing the blueprint for exponential growth in our clients’ accounts.
But more than a grind, the early days were filled with fun: growing small clients into hotshot overnight successes; flying around the world to meet with early employees; annual offsites at Zach’s sunny lakehouse in Tennessee and Irina’s “jungle mansh” in Chicago.
From the start, our founders cared deeply about picking the right types of companies to work with, turning down scores of shady businesses to build deeper relationships with “good for the world” industries. Not every client of ours is a mission-oriented world builder, but all of them share a common benevolent ethos.
But, let’s back up. Where did our name come from? Galactic Fed. More than “traditional marketing agency,” our name conjures thoughts of rocket ships, aliens, and high-tech planets. And that is by design. One of Zach and Irina’s commonalities is a deep love of literature, particularly sci-fi.
And really, is there a better metaphor for growth than a rocketship? You’ll notice our signature rocketship logo is always pointing “up and to the right,” a nod to the north star of every growth hacker: results that trend “up and to the right” over time.
We are a Federation. A group of talented individuals, joined together from different worlds, united under the flag of enhancing the human experience. This is our cause, this is our creed. Marketing is nothing more than telling a story, and we are honored that you and so many other businesses have trusted us to help tell yours. It’s a tale as old as time, as our ancestors sat around fires, looking up into space and wondered “what if? What’s out there? What’s possible?” Join the Federation, and let’s find out.
