COMO Creatives

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder & CEO of JAL Strategies

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

JAL Strategies is a commercial real estate investment platform focused on necessity-based retail — grocery- and service-anchored neighborhood centers and strip centers in Texas and the Southeast. We source, underwrite, and acquire assets alongside co-sponsors, raise equity from private investors and family offices, and manage those centers hands-on through leasing, repositioning, and operations. Our audience is institutional in expectation even when it's private in structure, so we came to COMO at launch stage needing a brand presence that could hold up in that room. They handled design, copy structure, and build, and delivered a site that positions us properly against much larger competitors. The launch generated real engagement across our network and gave us something substantive to point to in investor conversations and at ICSC.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire COMO Creatives to accomplish?

• Brand Strategy
• Logo
• Website Development

SOLUTION

How did you find COMO Creatives?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select COMO Creatives over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

About us: JAL Strategies is a commercial real estate investment platform focused on necessity-based retail — grocery- and service-anchored neighborhood centers and strip centers in Texas and the Southeast. We source and underwrite acquisitions, raise equity from private investors and family offices, and manage the assets hands-on through leasing and repositioning. The project: We engaged COMO at launch stage with no brand presence at all. The scope was a complete identity and digital foundation for a new investment firm that needed to look credible to an institutional audience from day one. Deliverables: Logo design — three initial concepts with several rounds of refinement Color palette development, integrated across all brand assets Website copy, drafted from our investor materials and refined with us Custom-designed and custom-coded website at jalstrategies.com Website hosting and domain/email DNS configuration Business card design and print coordination Letterhead and collateral templates SEO foundation and Google Analytics 4 setup for search indexing Results: Start to launch took roughly two months. The site gave us a credible presence going into ICSC and something substantive to point to in investor conversations. We've since gone back to COMO for additional work on our joint venture platform, which is the clearest endorsement I can give. What stood out: Colin gave options rather than a single concept, and gave a real opinion when I asked which direction he'd take. Communication was fast and proactive, pricing was transparent up front, and nothing needed chasing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Went from no brand presence to a fully launched identity and website in approximately two months, from kickoff in early March 2026 to launch on April 1, 2026 — every milestone hit on schedule. Delivered the complete scope in a single engagement: logo, color palette, website copy, custom-coded website, business cards, letterhead, hosting, and SEO/GA4 setup — no separate vendors required. Site was indexed and generating organic search visibility within days of launch following the SEO and Google Analytics 4 implementation. The launch announcement generated [X] impressions and [X] engagements on LinkedIn, meaningfully expanding reach across the investor and brokerage community. The site became a standing part of our capital-raising process. In the months following launch, we closed our first acquisition — a 21-tenant retail center in Houston — with equity raised from private investors and family offices who were routed to the site as a first point of diligence. Engaged COMO for a second project within four months of the first, based on the results.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project management was straightforward and low-friction, which mattered because I was building the firm and raising capital at the same time and had no bandwidth to manage a vendor. Colin worked in clear stages — copy, then logo, then color palette, then site design and build, then collateral — so I always knew what was in front of me and what decision I owed him. Turnaround was consistently fast. When I sent line edits on the website copy, revised concepts came back promptly. When I asked to see a logo concept applied to a business card and whether we could work purple into the palette, he came back with three full palette options rather than a single answer. Nothing sat, and I never had to follow up to get a response. Communication was direct and email-based, which suited me. He was proactive rather than reactive — he flagged that we should get SEO and Google Analytics properly configured before launch, quoted the hourly rate and estimated hours up front without being asked, and designed a letterhead unprompted because he anticipated I'd need one immediately. Pricing was transparent throughout and I was never surprised by an invoice. He also gave me real opinions. When I asked which business card design he'd choose, he told me my instinct was the safe option and recommended a bolder one — and he was right. That willingness to push back constructively is rare in a design vendor and it produced a better result. The full scope, from kickoff to launch, took about two months and hit its dates.

What was your primary form of communication with COMO Creatives?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Two things set COMO apart. The first is that Colin took the time to understand the business, not just the brief. Commercial real estate investment has its own language and its own audience, and most design shops would have produced something generically corporate. Instead he read through our investor materials and drafted website copy that actually articulated our strategy — necessity-based retail, conservative underwriting, hands-on ownership — in a way that held up in front of institutional investors and lenders. That's a harder problem than making something look good, and it's the part I couldn't have done myself. The second is that he has genuine taste and the confidence to advocate for it. He gave me real options at every stage rather than a single concept, but he also told me when my instinct was the safe choice and pushed me toward the better one. He was right, and the brand is stronger for it. A lot of agencies just execute whatever the client says; COMO acts like a creative partner with a point of view, while still deferring when it's your call to make. The practical upshot is that as a brand-new firm, we walked out looking established. That's exactly what a first-time sponsor needs when the people evaluating you have no track record to go on.

Are there any areas for improvement or something COMO Creatives could have done differently?

No