So we are a design consultancy, but what’s the hook? We need to find out how we can differentiate from the current consultancy model to be innovative and successful.
What is design as an industry missing? We discovered through our research that there is an issue of accessibility for companies that are not prepared to pay millions of dollars for traditional design consultancies to work on one major project at a time.
We had a chance to talk with Stephen Hood, a founder of a startup called Storium. He opened our eyes to the reality that startups cannot always afford the format of design compensation that is expected from traditional consultancies, and when dealing with contractors and freelancers there are complications with consistency, professionalism, and expectations.
That along with other insights from our research led us to unchartered territory in the design world: the subscription model. There are individual designers that work on a retainer model, and we spoke with a couple of them. They are work on more of a high level consultancy level, rather than getting their hands dirty crafting the actual design. We see a hole in the industry when it comes to crafting design as a full-blown consultancy, and at both macro and micro levels of crafting interactions.
