Building at Two Speeds: Gamith Hewathenna’s Digital Agency and 8-Acre Tea Estate
Gamith Hewathenna has spent the past five years building a digital agency for clients on the other side of the world, while quietly planting nearly 40,000 tea plants back home in southern Sri Lanka. One business moves at fibre-optic speed. The other moves at the speed of rain and soil. The thread between them is the same: he isn’t in the business of websites or tea, but in the business of building better systems.
The agency that grew backwards
Most agencies start local and dream of going global. Gamith did the reverse. Creative Elements was founded in 2022, but its roots run deeper — a BSc in Multimedia from Buckinghamshire New University and more than fifteen years in design, branding and digital marketing. Its first serious clients weren’t in Colombo, but in Melbourne and Sydney.
“I’ve been working closely with Australian clients for nearly five years,” he says. Australia remains the largest client base, followed by the UK, New Zealand and the US.
The offering is deliberately full-stack: digital branding, paid advertising, web development, content creation, custom systems and SEO. SEO has become a calling card — this year alone the team delivered around 30 search rankings for a single UK client, the kind of result that comes from months of methodical work rather than tricks.
Behind it sits a lean team of five to eight in Sri Lanka plus three in Australia. Lean by design: clients should reach a senior creative mind, not a junior account manager reading a script. Now he’s turning toward home. “Most of our work has been focused on overseas markets. Right now, I’m looking to establish our presence locally as well.”
Two and a half years, 8 acres, 40,000 plants
Away from screens, Gamith is also involved in Modarawila Plantations, recently completing an 8-acre tea estate after nearly two and a half years of continuous work. Planted with 2026 and 4049 Ceylon clones, it demands patience measured in seasons — yet the thinking mirrors his digital work: build the right foundation, create an efficient system, invest long term.
From service to product
Earlier this year he launched DisplayNex, a SaaS platform for digital signage. Many businesses still update menu boards and promotional screens with USB drives; DisplayNex replaces that with one cloud dashboard, starting with restaurants and extending to retail, salons, hotels and clinics.
For anyone watching the startup Sri Lanka landscape, it’s a familiar shift — moving from selling services to owning products. What makes this startup Sri Lanka story different is the timescale. The startup Sri Lanka conversation often rewards speed; Gamith’s principle is quieter: build the system, improve it continuously, and give it time to grow.
