UnlikelyPlaces

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Squash Apps is a software development and design company. I’m the chairman of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UnlikelyPlaces?

We didn’t have an internal brand management team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have UnlikelyPlaces on a monthly retainer as our brand management team. They redesigned our website and included a company history and explanation for our logo. They did research to identify opportunities and pain points in our industry and determined how those apply to us, our customers, our philosophy, and our voice. 

They recommended processes and protocols for us to follow, including how to approach a sales channel, our intellectual property, terminology, naming, and identity. They helped us with our visual assets, including the logo, color scheme, fonts, and different design elements of the website. 

The team also consulted on how to advertise, as well as on experimental marketing we could try, such as social and affiliate. One of our values is the empowerment of women, and most of our staff is female. UnlikelyPlaces advised us on how to present that to the outside world and have it be one of our stronger suits.

What is the team composition?

Jay (CEO) is our main contact, but he has a team behind him.

How did you come to work with UnlikelyPlaces?

I knew Jay through an acquaintance. I looked at UnlikelyPlaces’ website and the work they’d done for other companies, and I was pretty impressed. They gave us a branding proposal, covering what they could do with our website, logo, and language, as well as how we could better position ourselves

How much have you invested with them?

We have a monthly retainer with them of $10,000, and I believe we’re going to work with them for at least another six months.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with UnlikelyPlaces a couple of months ago. We’re going to launch the website soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s too early to say because the branding changes that Jay proposed aren’t implemented yet. Their work will be implemented on our website, social media, and all other digital assets. We will probably start doing it in January 2021. UnlikelyPlaces is pretty good, and they go all in. 

How did UnlikelyPlaces perform from a project management standpoint?

They work in scrum internally, and we have meetings to review the work as it progresses. I prefer this to getting all the work at the end of a project and finding out it’s not what I wanted. We use Slack a lot, and they have an internal project management software, possibly Trello or Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like the way they treat us. It feels as though we’re their most important customer, even though I know they work with some large businesses. UnlikelyPlaces talks to us, and they’re passionate about our company.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing for them to improve at this point.