No barriers: no counting hours, no charges on revisions;
One monthly retainer.

We are a startup agency. We act as an extension of your core team with our full-on design force. We keep an eye on the long term goals and lead product design down to the smallest task. Working with multiple startups, we position ourselves to always be in the know.

Why?

Your business hinges on a great user experience and product design, but you’re staffed too leanly to allocate it sufficient time and resources. Even assuming you can somehow assemble top creative resources, managing them is an equally big challenge.

Decision Makers Don’t Have Enough Time

When focus needs to be on business alliances, financial decisions and backend development, UX/UI related research, case studies, data collection and analysis are put on the back burner.

Hiring Designers Is A Tough Decision To Make

Talent agencies can be very expensive.
Skill sets vary from UX to Visual Design.
If a “Unicorn Designer” exists, he/she doesn’t have time to do it all.
A single designer is either too qualified for small tasks or too inexperienced for bigger decisions.

Management Of Design Team

There’s too much or too little for the in-house design team to handle.
Immediate needs might take the focus away from the end goal.

Fluctuating Scope

Requirements and Timelines change often.
Cross-platform implementations, gfx collateral, revisions, etc. are unpredictable.
More on startups’ design workload in this article “There Will Be Design”

Our Offer

We are a startup agency. From an A-list Creative Director, to front-end developers, Fake Crow is offering to work at full capacity, focus on results and,

• Help you trace your roadmap from design to development output,

• Streamline design, product and marketing related decisions,

• Shorten time-to-market,

• Provide the highest quality presentation of your products to customers.

What You Get

Workload Management

• Maximize efficiency among skillsets by distributing workload in our team, allowing our key talent to concentrate in their areas of strength.

• Prioritize and expedite tasks without jeopardizing long term goals. (e.g. while working on UI for web, we can get started on UX work for mobile and deliver urgent marketing collateral)

• Flexibility to absorb peaks in the workload, calling up resources as needed.

Accountability for Results

• Measure progress/feedback.

• Iterate frequently, progress faster.

• Provide insight and reports for you and your stakeholders.

• Keep long term goals in mind. Define and visualize the future of the product.

Design and Implementation of Cutting Edge Solutions

• We watch the development environment. By working with multiple startups we position ourselves to always be in the know.

• Creativity that serves the goal, not our egos. Our focus is to improve your product.

How Do We Do It?

We adapt to your immediate needs and provide 360° design services.

• Start with an intensive session to evaluate your current state, understand your goals and sync strategies.

• Together, come up with a road map (3, 6, 12 months).

• Put our team and resources to work on the end goals.

• Streamline our work internally and absorb fluctuating workload demands transparently.

• We don’t require equity, we are fueled by your success.

Services Covered

Research

• Competition

• Target Audience

• Platforms to Adapt To

• New Technologies to Implement

• Latest Design Reqs & Trends

Direction and Strategy

• Milestones & Goals

• Brand Positioning

• Go to Market Strategy

Content, Tests and Reporting

• Content Management

• Progress Diary

• Case Studies

• Social Media

• Validation & Analysis

• User Testing

• A/B Tests

User Experience Design

• Sketching

• Wireframing

• Storyboarding

• Prototyping

User Interface Design

• Comps

• UI Elements

• Requirements and Specs

Development

• Front-End Development HTML5, CSS3, JS

• API Integration

• D3, JSon

• Content Management Systems; WordPress, Joomla, ModX, Custom

• Custom Solutions

• iOS, Android

Additional Materials

• Investor Relations

  • Executive reports

  • Decks

  • One-Pagers

• Marketing Collateral

Maximum Six Select Startups At A Time

The only restraint we are imposing on ourselves is the number of startups we will offer this infrastructure to.

We want to team up with a maximum of six startups from non-competitive but complementary fields.

We believe that there’s a lot of value in similar level startups opening communication channels for future business development and collaboration opportunities.

Our goal is to create a small Think Tank and utilize connections between these startups’ leaders.

This group will also have access to a network of thought leaders such as; Business Mentors, Inbound Marketing Professionals, Motion Design & Interaction Artists, Finance & Crowdfunding Advisors, Technology Chiefs, Investors.

Questions You Might Have

What’s the advantage of this model over other available options?

Current Options to build your design team,

• Full time: means payroll, benefits and often equity. You are always vulnerable to recruitment.

• Contract: not dependable in the long run. Skillsets vary. Post-contract help is not always available.

• Creative agency: pricey and project based.

With Fake Crow,

1. You will be getting the full power of a digital agency specialized in startups.

2. Our price point is value based as opposed to hourly rates, revision and deliverable based billing. We deal with no overcharges, limitations on revisions.

3. Our price point is competitive with the cost of a full-time team and much lower than large agencies.

How do you compare to large agencies?

• We don’t bill hourly or on project basis.

• Our flat monthly retainer is comprehensive, and affordable.

• Our team is specialized in startups.

I need someone in-house. What’s your solution?

• Visible, collaborative project management tools, from file sharing to tracking assets.

• Daily, weekly communication and understanding of development team’s process.

• Multiple design, marketing, research talent and skillsets. On site sessions. We will place one of our team members onsite with you. We encourage you to be regular guests at our office, you can come follow the work progress in person, too. When you get to that point, we can connect your new hire to our existing team. There will be no loss of mission or vision.

Will there be a monthly retainer?

Yes, we sign a 3-6 month contract based on your needs and workload specific to your startup.

How will Fake Crow allocate its time across six startups?

We aim to pace the selection of these six startups with an eye to their complementary business models and adapt our design, research and marketing forces in parallel with the needs. We draw on a circle of highly skilled senior specialists to jump in as necessary to shape strategy and guide our work.

What’s next?

Send an email to [email protected]. Let’s set up a 30 minute, no strings attached meeting to see if we can be useful to you.

Related Reads:
Shortening UX to UI time: a different approach to MVP design

Pre MVP: Making the Most out of Your “Coming Soon” Page
Why You Should Keep a Captain’s Logbook for Your Startup