From DM to commitment, in one trail.
Every pitch logged with brief, scope, fee, and decision. The partner stops chasing approvals over WhatsApp at 11pm.
- Pitch intake form
- Auto-drafted proposal
- Decision log per pitch
- Notion, Pipedrive, custom
Skip to main contentThe design & creative studios stack 01 · Pitch & qualification 02 · Project P&L 03 · Asset library 04 · Client comms 05 · Resourcing 06 · BrainBase Sample engagement Adjacent industries
Professional services · Design studios
The studio that ships, not the one that quotes.
Independent design and creative studios — pitch to publish to invoice on one stack. The partner stops being the project manager.
Design · brand · creative
Founder-led
Pitch-to-commit, typical
Studio margin, year one
Studios Design · brand · creative3–15 staff Founder-led−11 days Pitch-to-commit, typical+24% Studio margin, year one
Six instruments, calibrated.
Independent design and creative studios — pitch to publish to invoice on one stack. The partner stops being the project manager.
Margin per project, before invoice.
Time and cost reconciled per project, live. The fixed-fee that quietly went underwater — flagged at week three, not at delivery.
- Per-project P&L
- Fixed-fee burn tracker
- Loaded rate by role
- Toggl, Xero, custom
The studio's working files, owned and findable.
Design files, brand systems, past deliverables — indexed by client, by project, by year. The new joiner finds the right file in seconds.
- File-tree by client + project
- Version-aware archive
- Brand system library
- Custom + Drive / Dropbox
Reviews, approvals, change-orders.
Client review and approval on a single thread — Loom walkthroughs, written notes, e-sign on sign-off. No design-by-email-thread.
- Review thread per project
- Loom + written notes
- E-sign approval gate
- Loom, Notion, Slack-Connect
Who's on it, who's heavy, who's free.
Live capacity grid across the studio, holiday-aware. New brief lands — the answer to staffing is on the screen.
- Per-designer capacity
- Holiday & PTO sync
- Allocation suggestions
- Float, Forecast
Brand voice, deliverable templates, supplier roster.
Pitch decks, brand systems, supplier list, past wins — searchable. The studio brain that works whether the partner is in the room or not.
- Pitch deck archive
- Deliverable templates
- Supplier roster
- AI-assisted retrieval
The brand studio that pitched in six days, not seventeen.
Six staff. Forty pitches a year. Pitch-to-commit averaging seventeen days.
A brand studio ran pitches over email and Notion — proposals took the partner a Sunday each time. Two-week build: pitch intake form, auto-drafted proposal from a scope catalogue, decision log against every conversation. One quarter in: pitch-to-commit cut from 17 days to 6, win-rate up four points, the partner's Sundays returned.
How we measure: Pitch-to-commit measured as date of brief receipt to date of fee acceptance across 38 tracked pitches; win rate = accepted / proposed, rolling quarter.
−11 dayspitch-to-commit
+4ptswin-rate, year one
+24%studio margin
Different shape of the same problem.
If your work isn't exactly this, the nearest sectors share the rhythm. Or browse every industry we build for.
Map the studio.
Bring a recent pitch and a delivered project. We diagnose from the brief and the bill.