Big Human

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a cryptocurrency exchanger and custodian, and we deal with all digital assets. We also have earning products, so we’re very much involved in the financial space. I’m in charge of overseeing all design-related aspects of the company, such as product design, marketing design, and Ui/UX design for engineering and mobile engineering.

What challenge were you trying to address with Big Human?

We brought in Big Human to help us with our initial brand exploration before knowing what our company was going to be. It was just a project that we were working towards, but we didn’t even know how it was going to be called.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Big Human worked with us to establish our name and the logos. In the beginning, we were looking for a name more than anything so we could go into the marketplace with an established brand. They helped us brainstorming different options. There were 3–4 really good options on the table that we almost chose, but the one that we picked seemed like the right fit for us.

Later, we engaged with Big Human to help us with Slack capacity needs for launching a couple of microsites. They also helped us with a redesign of our marketing website a few years ago on the creative side.

What is the team composition?

We worked with approximately six people from Big Human. There were two creative people first, and we had more people jump in during the critique ideation sessions before there was a lack of capacity. We also had contact with Steve (Managing Partner).

How did you come to work with Big Human?

I believe that there was a connection between our teams several years ago, but I’m not entirely sure.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2014–April 2018. Once we were able to hire, we ended up taking this project in-house about halfway through the redesign of our marketing website and went to completion with it. However, Big Human was very valuable and a strategic partner there — that was great.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The name we picked with the help of Big Human was the right fit for us. It has a duality aspect; a marriage between old and new finance. There were a lot of parallels in the name, and we thought it was, if anything, the perfect name to go into the market.

We don’t have any metrics on the success of our engagement because we don’t have any prior data. However, we’ve had a lot of positive reinforcement from the industry. We’ve had zero negative feedback from the industry, the press, nor the PR around the name or the color scheme. In this case, no news is extremely good news. A big decision-making point for us was that we realized that we didn’t have to directly associate the name with an industry term.

How did Big Human perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly via email. We had a lot of phone calls and in-person meetings as well. I don’t remember the exact project management tool that Big Human used, but it might have been Basecamp or Jira.

Big Human was very good about keeping us very informed on where we were on the project and what the deliverables would be per cycle. We didn’t have any feedback, negative or positive, so it was a very non-issue process.

We spent a lot of time going back and forth, but, once we came to an agreement and established the name, it was smooth sailing. They were always prioritizing us — it was a good relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The personal touch relationship that Big Human provided to us was impressive. Regardless of the connection our teams had, I became professionally close with Steve and everyone on his team. They had the sensibility required and actually cared about the work that they were doing — they weren’t just trying to get the deliverable out and move on. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We went back and forth quite a bit when ideating the name, so it felt like we were dragging that process for a while. However, it could have been on us, so we can’t blame them for giving good ideas and not coming to an agreement. The reason why that possibly happened was that we had less framework around what we were trying to accomplish with the company.

We whiteboarded different concepts around what we were trying to do and whether we wanted to be a bridge to the future of finance. There was a lot of honing around the things that we agreed upon, and then we worked that off. It was a less defined project at the beginning and a more defined one at the end. If this would have been front-loaded, maybe it would have been a faster process. However, the creative process is always tricky.

Additionally, when we were on the branding exercise and during the creation of the pages, they asked us questions about what we needed. When we gave them what we needed, they put together something really fast for us. A little more digging into the goals of the project would have been really helpful.

This was a miss on both sides; we needed to provide more detailed information upfront, and, since they were working on the project, they should have known what to ask.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want that extra around personal touch, knowing that they're going to go the extra mile for you, Big Human is that team for sure. Ask the right questions upfront so they can do a better job later.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Currently, I am an independent consultant. I recently moved to Japan in February, but prior to that, I was the VP and head of experience design at an insurance company. I had also worked in management positions for various other companies including a brokerage that was recently purchased by a large corporation.

What challenge were you trying to address with Big Human?

I needed a reliable service provider that could work consistently and deliver high-quality work without bringing a lot of ego to the job, so I’ve engaged with Big Human.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had been an executive and director in charge of 40–45 people, so I would often augment my team by bringing in Big Human. We have their specialists come in and really focus on special assignments.

I’ve worked with Big Human for numerous projects including complex trading applications, where they worked primarily on a day trading app. I’ve also engaged with them for marketing campaigns that ranged from microsites to college initiatives where we taught students how to do financial investment.

Our most recent project, which started in December 2020, involves a design system for my previous company’s enterprise as well as a few other miscellaneous projects like B2B platforms. With COVID-19, we had to become digital and scalable fast, so Big Human has helped us develop a well-coded system for designing digital solutions and bringing our services online.

That recent project began with an audit of the different divisions of the company, for which Big Human would make a unified system. I provided the team with a brief and access to the different platforms used within the company and connected them with my team. We then began designing an updated and modified version of all of our different UX components while addressing all the gaps. We were also simultaneously redesigning an internal platform, which is separate but integrated into this project. 

What is the team composition?

For the most recent integrated projects, I’ve worked with eight people from the team. Andrew (Director of Product & Strategy) is among our key points of contact.

How did you come to work with Big Human?

Ten years ago, I worked with the person who would later become the founder of Big Human. He did fantastic work, so when I needed to hire an agency I decided to go with them. We were definitely one of their early clients when they were much smaller. 

How much have you invested with them?

With the brokerage firm, we were definitely spending over a million dollars a year, and with the most recent project for the insurance company, we’ve spent over half a million, which also varies dramatically depending on the circumstances.

What is the status of this engagement?

I hired them a year Big Human around December 2010 and did dozens of projects with them through the years. They’re still working with the last two companies I was with.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The mobile apps Big Human helped design for the brokerage firm were Barron’s number one for UX for at least a year. We were very highly ranked in the space for platform usability, which their team had a high-level, strategic role in. The apps have also consistently had over four stars in the App Store.

Big Human has been very good at picking up and running with what we give them. They don’t require a lot of handholding and are very efficient. Some projects are heavy on the upfront or discovery process, but since we didn’t have the time to invest in that, their team has been flexible enough to either start from scratch or deal with suboptimal circumstances.

How did Big Human perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very strong when it comes to project management. Andrew, in particular, has a solid business background and is good at running a project. I’ve worked with them for many years and have seen people come and go, but their services have remained consistent. Even though they’re a big agency with 15 accounts, they’re very engaged with us.

During the project with the brokerage firm, which was more intensive than the others, we had regular weekly standup meetings. We communicated via Zoom, email, and phone call, and were sometimes in touch daily. They’ve used Jira and other typical tools, but what I like about them is that they integrate with whatever systems are being used internally. They’re very flexible and adaptive to the organization they’re supporting. Other companies have very rigid processes and come with an overhead, but it is not the case with Big Human.

Their team has also always been very good at estimation and managing timelines. I’ve never had any major overages in all the different projects I’ve done with them unless there is a scope change on our side. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say Big Human’s flexibility in terms of technologies, approaches, and methods is at the top of their best qualities. They bring a consistent level of service. Other agencies will simply not immerse themselves in the existing work and will insist on starting everything from scratch, causing everything to be out of sync, but Big Human is able to come in and inherit work that previous agencies have started.

Another good thing about them is that I don’t need to hire multiple agencies for a project because they are really good at ideation, production, and several other aspects. I can go to them for a wide variety of tasks, which has made my life easier. There has always been a good balance; their services are not free but they’re also not insanely expensive compared to other providers. They are very reasonable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everyone can always improve, but their batting average has been exceptional. I can’t think of a complaint offhand. I could simply connect them with an executive and walk away since they already know my preferences. I don’t need to drive the whole process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Big Human is a digital product strategy shop that is really good with startups and large enterprises. They’re not an advertising agency. You can hire them to do branding or soup to nuts work, but keep in mind that they’re a product design service provider who can develop digital products from scratch or from existing frameworks. The main thing is to understand who you’re hiring and for what.