Solutions
BUSINESS
We came across a StartUp who had a product and service that was changing consumers lives by making financial management easier through an easily semi-automated service. Their business model was crafted around a subscription from the consumer. Wait, we said, all the onus on the consumer? Aren’t you also helping various financial service providers when they select their service in the use of your product? You are? And they are gaining all these customers… for…free? One simple pivot in their business model to make the service free for the customer and rather paid for by the service providers was a game changer.
Business model I revenue model I Business strategy I Design-led business approaches I and more…
Resolve your business challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
LEGAL
Working with creative entrepreneurs where ideas are their worth, we were faced with their very business livelihood being threatened in bog standard legal contracts with their clients. They were signing their lives away, handing over their IP (intellectual property) time after time in the clauses in the lengthy gazillion paged contracts they signed. We curated their legal documentation enabling them to lead the legal binds with clients in a fair (no longer onerous) manner. Truly mutually beneficial financial documentation to BOTH parties - have you ever?! Our favourite touch was clause 2 which reads “Be Kind”. Our experts in legal for creative entrepreneurs also take pride in transforming what was formerly seen as legal mumbo jumbo, to language easily understood by both parties, changing the way we consume legal aspects of our businesses.
Contracts I NDA’s I Terms of Service Agreements I Legal Policies I T&C’s I Litigation I and more…
Resolve your legal challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
FINANCIAL
When faced with the dilemma from our client who was hitting a roof with revenue potential for their business, we stared at their reality head on: having priced their service based on their time, a per hour billing model, meant that the only means to increase revenue was to work more hours, but what about when there are simply no hours left in a day. It was humanly impossible to grow a business using this costing model. A transition to a value-based pricing model enabled them to price the outcome the client was buying and the value attached to that, no matter how long it took the person to deliver this. In fact, the sooner the better (with no compromise on quality of course). Their clients realised that they were incentivising them to take longer to deliver as only that way would they make more money. This new pricing model revolutionised the client-business relationship where both were better for the change. Now the expert designer who can deliver a stellar and effective app design, gets rewarded more than the mediocre designer who will naturally take double the time to get to the same result - that’s IF they can even get to the same standard. Clever pricing model that!
Revenue Models I Creative pricing strategies I Financial management I Funding I Investment I and more…
Resolve your financial challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
PEOPLE
Gone are the days of yesteryear when it was accepted and expected to work at one business forever and ever. Today, those that stay with businesses forever are the entrepreneurs who started them, they are all in, it’s their dream. For employees, the business is a part of their journey of growth, and to evolve over time most often means moving on. Our client desperately wanted to cultivate a business that would (unrealistically) keep the creatives they hired, stay with them forever. They thought a cool set up, some free lunches and outings would hook them. We discovered their belief couldn't be more far from the truth, learning and professional growth was the stickiness they needed to offer. By developing a growth framework focussed on this inherent need from their employees, they were enabled to grow and inspire them during their stay. Yes inevitably they did leave to further their careers through change, but here is the winning silver lining, their referrals and increased brand equity inferred through past employees worked like a magnet in attracting the right new talent. Talk about the best retention & acquisition strategy ever. Positive word of mouth - nothing more powerful. They fast became the sought after design house.
Talent acquisition & retention strategies I Culture design I Employer brand marketing I and more…
Resolve your people challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
OPERATIONS
Approached by a Business-of-One struggling to run their business while working in and on the business, we introduced tips, tricks and hacks to keep them delivering and growing their business without becoming the business. Simple hacks like keeping to the 15 min meeting rule, time blocking, and coding meetings into ‘Think Tanks’, ‘Ad Hoc’s’ and ‘BAU/Business-as-Usual’s’ safeguarded their precious time. Outsourcing key time vampire areas to experts who can achieve results in half the time and with little effort is a winning strategy for any Business-of-One. This is how our client reached the heights of their larger corporate counterparts - like a ninja!
Operations I Logistics I Delivery servicing I Support services I Project management I Administration & Virtual assistance I and more…
Resolve your operational challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
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MARKETING
Approached by the hundredth experience design business who was battling to stand out from competition and stand tall, we went through the transformation of peeling away the layers of sameness till we got to their unique differentiation in the market. One that would have a client knocking on their door, not the other way around, begging to be heard amongst the noise. How? Nope, not because they were the ‘best’ in the market at design - everyone is right? Nope, not because they were ‘human-centred’ designers - everyone is that too right? They became one of the rare design houses that specialised in experience design for health tech clients in africa. Clients in Africa, in the health tech startup space, looking for design, could find many generic design companies to do, well, sort of close work for them, but no one who had quite the heightened experience and aptitude required in this very niche space. This is how clients come to you. And guess what, they pay a premium because there are not many of you! The generic design companies that do “great design work” for a lot of clients, well, that’s just it, so many to choose from, almost like choosing a commodity, price can be a deciding factor. Niching down is the best marketing strategy for premium positioning. They are all the more successful for it. Voila!
Niching down & positioning strategies I Content creation I Social media strategy & management I Growth hacking strategies I and more…
Resolve your marketing challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
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SALES
The story of great minds. Two clients faced the same challenge: where will my next customer come from? Today, the secret to sales lies in relationships not transactions. When clients with complimentary offerings and the same ‘no sales’ ailment, what do you do? Connect them and double their customer base overnight. Not to mention a long life business relationship to stand the test of time. This is the story of how a software development business met a design business and teamed up to rank up sales like never before. And a little secret… we also have done this for two alike businesses: a design business and… a… design business. Collaboration doubled up their efforts and allowed niche areas within design to spill over into one another's offerings as a collective. Together they are a powerhouse. That's powerful selling!
Outreach sales I Transformational sales strategies I Strategic partnerships & collaborations I and more…
Resolve your sales challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
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RESEARCH
We are often approached by the creative entrepreneur behind the StartUp, wrestling with a powerful idea that desperately needs to evolve into reality, commercially. An idea that becomes a real product /service, that becomes a real business, that scales and leaves an impact on the world. Sadly, good ideas don't often make it through to the other side, investors pull out when numbers aren't reached and entrepreneurs' dreams are then shattered. We make it our business to step in and help. When the idea lands, we bring the creator up close with the potential target market and stakeholders and view it from all angles, all relevant perspectives, and when it comes out the wash, it is fine tuned to all it can be. No one wants to redo years of work on an idea gone stale or off course. Every successful business idea was born out of a vivid insight into solving a problem, one that your target audience is willing to pay for, and one that finds sense within the commercial realms of business.
Design research - guerilla testing, AB testing, etc. I Qualitative research - ethnography, contextual inquiries, etc. I Quantitative research - surveys, community panels etc. I Secondary research - report distillation, etc I Analytics - google, adobe, etc. I Ideation I Analysis & Reporting I and more…
Resolve your research challenges with unique and future facing solutions.
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