The questions
we get asked.
Answered.

All three, depending on the work. Brand and design projects are quoted as fixed-fee against a defined scope. Ongoing services like SEO, ads, and virtual assistants run on monthly retainers sized to the workload. Hourly only comes up for small one-off requests outside an active engagement.

Project work usually runs 4 to 12 weeks depending on scope. Brand and identity work is on the shorter end, full website builds on the longer. Retainer engagements have no fixed end, with a 30-day rolling cancellation. The longest standing relationship we have is six years.

Both. Roughly a third of our work is with pre-launch or seed-stage startups, the rest with growth-stage companies and established businesses scaling into new categories. What matters more than stage is whether the ambition is real and the team can move.

We're a distributed studio with team members across three time zones. Most of the work happens remotely with weekly syncs over video. For deeper engagements we travel for kickoffs and key workshops when it adds enough value to justify the trip.

Yes to both. NDAs we sign on request before scope conversations. IP transfer is standard in our contracts. On full payment of the agreed fee, you own the deliverables outright with no licensing strings attached.

A quick intro call, then either a written brief from your side or a discovery call from ours. From there we put together a scope, timeline, and price. Most engagements move from first email to signed agreement in under a week.

Yes. 50% on signature, 50% on delivery for fixed-fee projects. Retainers are invoiced monthly in advance. Larger engagements get split into milestone payments tied to phases. We never start work without payment terms agreed in writing.

Yes, both. Pauses are fine with two weeks notice. Scope changes get evaluated, priced, and added to the contract via a change order. The original timeline shifts to reflect the new work. We'd rather adjust on the record than discover the scope grew sideways.

A weekly check-in call, async daily updates over Slack or email, and shared progress in whatever PM tool you prefer. Quiet weeks have shorter touch-ins, intense weeks have more. We never go silent for more than 48 hours during an active engagement.

Yes. About 40% of our work is with clients outside our home region. The work happens over video and async tools, payments handle in USD or your preferred currency, and we adjust meeting times to overlap with your team's working hours.

A focused brand sprint runs 4 to 6 weeks. A full strategic engagement with audience research, competitive analysis, and messaging architecture runs 8 to 10 weeks. We keep it concentrated so insights stay fresh and the team stays in the work.

A positioning statement, audience personas, messaging architecture, brand narrative, tone of voice guide, and a strategy document that ties it all together. Everything formatted so a designer, copywriter, or marketer on your team can pick it up and run with it.

We strongly prefer to build on what you already have. The first phase of our engagement is an audit of existing research, customer data, brand assets, and team knowledge. We only commission new research when there's a clear gap that's blocking the work.

We always ask: what equity in the current brand is worth keeping? Most of the time the answer is more than the client thinks. We default to evolution unless there's a strategic reason for a clean break, like a category pivot, M&A, or reputation reset.

The founder or CEO for at least the kickoff and the final readouts. A marketing or product lead through the working sessions. One person designated as the day-to-day decision maker so we don't get stuck waiting on consensus from a five-person committee.

A combination of customer interviews, competitive analysis, internal stakeholder input, and existing data review. We don't make strategy in a vacuum. By the end, the strategy isn't our opinion, it's a defensible position backed by what we found.

Both. Workshops are how we get the team aligned on the inputs. Decks are how we document the outputs. Most engagements include two to three working sessions with your leadership, then a final readout and a written strategy document.

Yes. Naming is a separate scope from brand strategy but often runs in parallel. We handle naming concepts, linguistic and cultural checks, basic domain and trademark availability screens, and presentation to your team. Formal legal trademark filing gets referred to a trademark attorney.

We surface the disagreement, walk through the trade-offs of each direction, and let you make the final call. Our job is to make the choice clear, not to override your judgment about your own business. We've changed our recommendation more than once when a founder had context we didn't.

Strategy without execution is decoration. The deliverable includes specific guidance on how to express the strategy across each marketing channel: site, ads, social, sales, internal comms. If we're also running the execution, the handoff is internal. If not, we brief your existing team or agency.

Primary logotype, secondary marks, monogram, color system, typography pairings, visual language elements, brand applications across key touchpoints, and a working brand guidelines document. All in vector and production-ready formats.

Three distinct directions, each properly developed rather than ten half-formed ideas. After feedback we refine one or combine elements before going into final production. Strategy work upstream means we're rarely surprised by which direction lands.

Yes. A working brand book covering logo usage, color rules, typography hierarchy, voice and tone, and application examples. Built for your team to actually use, not a 200-page document that sits in a Drive folder nobody opens.

Often, yes. Identity refreshes scope smaller and ship faster than full rebrands. We audit what's working, what's tired, and what's getting in the way, then update or extend rather than replace. Half the value, sometimes a quarter of the timeline.

We do basic availability screens to make sure we're not designing something obviously taken. Formal trademark search and filing is handled by a trademark attorney we can refer. The cost of legal trademark protection is usually $500 to $2,500 per mark depending on jurisdiction.

Vector source files (AI, SVG, EPS), production-ready exports (PNG, JPG, PDF), web-ready favicons, social profile pics in all common sizes, and a packaged file kit organized by use case. Everything labeled so your team can grab what they need without asking us.

Three rounds of refinement on the selected direction. Most projects use one or two. We've found that more than three rounds usually means we missed something in strategy upstream, and we'd rather fix that than design our way out of it.

Yes. Most identity packages include core applications. Custom production assets like vehicle wraps, large-format signage, retail packaging, and event collateral are scoped separately as application design work.

Yes. We can design brand architectures with master brand and sub-brand relationships, or independent identities that share underlying systems. The architecture decision is part of the strategy upstream.

The system is designed to be extended. Adding a new color, a new sub-brand application, or a new typographic pairing usually fits into a small scope of additional work. We document the system so extending it doesn't require starting over.

Figma as the primary file, with Framer or ProtoPie for high-fidelity prototypes. Miro for workshops, Maze for usability testing, Storybook for design system docs that align with the codebase. We can work in your stack if you have specific requirements.

Annotated specs in Figma, working prototypes that demonstrate intended interactions, and a shared Slack channel between designers and engineers during the build. We stay close through implementation to catch the things specs can't capture.

Yes, when the project warrants it. User interviews, journey mapping, and usability testing are standard for product work. For marketing site or landing page projects, research is lighter and faster. We scope it to the question that needs answering.

Yes. We adopt your design system, contribute back to it, and only deviate where there's a strategic reason. If your system is incomplete, part of our engagement can be filling gaps and documenting what's missing so the team can keep building after we're done.

Mobile-first is the default for product and marketing site work since the majority of traffic is mobile. For B2B SaaS and dashboard work where users are primarily on desktop, we design desktop-first and adapt down. The decision is made in the kickoff based on your actual analytics.

WCAG 2.1 AA compliance is the baseline for everything we ship. Color contrast, focus states, semantic structure, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility are part of standard QA. Higher accessibility levels and specific regulatory requirements get scoped separately.

Yes. Most projects start without one. We build the system in parallel with the actual screens, so by the end you have both shipped work and a documented system. Building a system in a vacuum without real screens to test it on rarely produces a useful one.

We collaborate. Your internal team owns the long-term system, we contribute fresh thinking, capacity, or specialty work like motion design or design systems. We've never positioned ourselves as a replacement for an internal team and don't intend to.

We've designed the process so direction changes get caught early, in the wireframe or low-fidelity phase, before high-fidelity work begins. A change after high-fidelity is in motion gets evaluated, scoped, and added as a change order with adjusted timeline.

Two rounds of refinement at each fidelity level (wireframes, then visual design). Most projects use one round at each. We staff projects so the people doing the work have enough context to get close on the first attempt.

WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, React/Next.js, and custom builds with headless CMS. We pick the platform that fits your team capability, content needs, and growth plan, not the one we want to build on this quarter.

Yes. Monthly maintenance retainers cover security patches, plugin updates, uptime monitoring, performance tuning, and on-call support. The 3am alert lands on us, not on your team.

You own the codebase, the hosting account, the domain, and every credential we touch on your behalf. We deliver via your Git repository or transfer one if you don't have one set up. Nothing about the build holds you hostage to us.

Yes. Content migration, URL mapping, 301 redirects, SEO continuity, and DNS cutover all included. We've migrated from every major platform at this point, and the process is rehearsed enough that traffic doesn't drop on launch day.

A marketing site is 6 to 10 weeks from kickoff to launch. A larger ecommerce build runs 10 to 16 weeks. Complex web apps go longer depending on scope. We've never had a launch day surprise that pushed the date by more than a week.

Yes. We set up hosting in your account so you own it, configure DNS, manage SSL certificates, and handle email routing. We use Vercel, Netlify, Cloudways, or AWS depending on the platform. Everything stays in your name.

Yes, we've built and migrated large catalogs. Shopify is our default for catalogs under 10,000 products. For larger catalogs, complex variants, or B2B pricing, we move to headless commerce platforms like Shopify Plus or BigCommerce.

Built into the platform from the start. We use translation management systems, hreflang tags for SEO, regional routing, and currency handling. We don't bolt internationalization onto a finished site, that path leads to maintenance pain.

Yes. Technical SEO is part of the build, not an afterthought: clean URL structure, semantic HTML, schema markup, performance, sitemaps, robots.txt, canonical handling. Content optimization is separate but we set up the foundation that makes it work.

Changes after launch happen through our maintenance retainer or as one-off work. Small content edits we can train your team to handle directly in the CMS. Larger changes get briefed, estimated, scheduled, and shipped on a predictable cadence.

Technical and on-page improvements show movement within 30 to 60 days. Content-driven ranking gains take 3 to 6 months to compound. Authority work shows up at the 6 to 9 month mark. Anyone promising faster results is either spending your money on the wrong things or lying.

No, and we'd walk away from any agency that did. Google decides rankings, not us. What we guarantee is the technical foundation, the content quality, and the authority work that gives you the best statistical shot at ranking. The work is what we control.

Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, and Surfer SEO as the core stack. You get access to all reporting dashboards, and we never hide behind tool jargon when explaining what's working.

We monitor algorithm signals constantly and our approach is built on fundamentals that survive updates: good technical health, useful content, real authority. If a major update hits, we audit impact within a week and recalibrate without a separate invoice.

Yes, and we do it carefully. Earned links from real publications, digital PR, expert citations, and resource-page placements. We don't buy links from networks, we don't use PBNs, we don't do any of the tactics that get sites penalized when Google does its next sweep.

Yes. We can hand keyword targets, briefs, and structure to your writers and review their work for SEO. Or we write the content ourselves. The mode depends on your team's capacity and the technical complexity of the topics.

All of the above. Local SEO has its own playbook with Google Business Profile optimization, local citations, review management, and location-targeted content. We staff local SEO work with people who specialize in it, not the same team running global SEO.

Through attribution from organic search to revenue, not just rankings or traffic. We set up tracking that connects keyword wins to actual leads or sales, factoring in customer journey length. If a keyword brings traffic but no conversions, we kill it and reallocate.

Sometimes. We start with an audit to identify the cause (manual penalty, algorithmic, technical issue, low quality content). Recovery depends on what we find. Some sites recover fast, some take six months, and a few are not worth recovering versus starting fresh.

Both options exist. We have writers on staff and partners we work with regularly. Or we can brief and review your team's writing. The choice usually comes down to your category complexity and your internal capacity.

Meta (Facebook + Instagram + Reels), Google Ads (Search, Performance Max, YouTube, Shopping), TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and select programmatic channels. We pick the mix that matches your audience and category, not the platform with the loudest sales rep.

For ongoing management, $10K per month in ad spend is the floor that makes the engagement economically rational for both sides. Below that, you're better served learning to run the account yourself or with a freelance specialist.

We do both, and we strongly prefer to do both. Creative is the lever that moves performance more than targeting or budget in 2025. Briefed, produced, and tested in weekly cycles, with the winners scaled and the losers killed fast.

The ad accounts are yours from day one. We work as a user inside your accounts, not the other way around. If we part ways, we remove our access and you keep the campaigns, the pixels, the audiences, and every dollar of learning.

A flat monthly retainer based on the size and complexity of the account, not a percentage of ad spend. Percentage-of-spend models incentivize agencies to spend more rather than spend better. Our fee is the same whether you're spending $10K or $100K, so the only incentive is performance.

Daily account hygiene (bid adjustments, budget pacing, audience exclusions). Weekly creative testing cycles. Monthly strategic reviews. Quarterly account restructures. The cadence matches the speed at which paid media decays without attention.

It depends entirely on category, offer, and starting point. We never quote ROAS in a proposal without seeing the account and the math. What we will commit to is the methodology that gets us to a defensible ROAS, and the transparency to show you how it's tracking weekly.

Yes. We've worked in crypto, supplements, financial services, and other categories with platform restrictions. Compliance-aware copy, careful targeting, and platform-by-platform approval handling is part of the work.

Briefed, produced, and launched in weekly cycles. Three to five new variants per week per campaign during testing phases. Winners get scaled, losers get killed within seven days. We track what's actually moving the metric, not what looks good in the studio.

Yes. Sending paid traffic to a poorly-converting page is the single most expensive mistake in this category. Our scope includes landing page audits, design, testing, and iteration. If your CVR is 1% and we can get it to 3%, that's equivalent to tripling your ad budget.

Inbox and calendar management, customer communications, research, data entry, CRM updates, travel and bookings, basic reporting, light social media moderation, and recurring admin work. If it's repeatable and doesn't require your specific judgment, it's a candidate.

Both options exist. Dedicated VAs work exclusively on your account and learn your business in depth, billed at a higher monthly rate. Shared VAs work across multiple clients with strict task boundaries, billed by hours used. Most clients start shared and graduate to dedicated.

Slack, email, WhatsApp, or a shared task board, whatever fits your existing workflow. Tasks come in, the VA confirms, gets it done, and reports back. Most clients standardize on a single channel after the first week.

Yes. Plans are sized by monthly hours and you can move up or down month to month with 14 days notice. Busy quarter ramps up, slow season pulls back. No annual lock-in on the VA service.

Default is 8 hours per day during your business hours, in your time zone. We have VAs across multiple time zones so coverage is flexible. After-hours or weekend coverage is available with advance notice for an additional fee.

VAs work through your accounts using password manager handoff (1Password, Bitwarden), 2FA on everything, and audit trails on access. We sign NDAs. Sensitive credentials are never shared via email or chat. Off-boarding revokes all access within an hour.

The major productivity stack (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Notion), CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive), project management tools (Asana, ClickUp, Trello), and most common communication and scheduling tools. Specialty software gets covered in onboarding.

Yes, with proper training and your approved templates. We start with low-risk interactions (acknowledgments, basic FAQ, status updates) and expand as the VA proves judgment. Escalation rules are agreed upfront so anything ambiguous gets routed to you.

We replace them within a week. The first replacement is free; subsequent replacements come with onboarding time billed at half rate. We'd rather fix a fit issue early than have you stuck with someone you don't trust.

Yes. Every VA signs a non-disclosure agreement with us, and we sign one with you that extends to all VAs on your account. Your data, your customers, your processes stay confidential during and after the engagement.