Underbelly Creative

In 2014 I made the jump from a large, full-service marketing firm to a small, boutique product design and development firm.

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Going from an agency of sub-200 to sub-10 was a wild experience but I loved every minute of it. The challenges were familiar, but new. I went from overseeing account services at the Summit Group to managing marketing, business development, account services, agency operations, and project management disciplines at Underbelly.

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I loved the autonomy of leading a small firm. No one else was going to tell us what to do. We had to figure it out on our own. At first this felt anxiety-inducing, but I learned to thrive in those conditions and built a lot of confidence in my abilities as a leader.

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Underbelly was founded by Anthony Lagoon, a good friend who had recently left the in-house product design world to build something of his own. Anthony is a true entrepreneur with a keen eye for design. Our skillsets overlapped well, and together we grew the firm from a scrappy studio in a tiny room to a full-service product design and development company with our own building and a client base most agencies would die for. We went from $300k to $8M in annual revenue in a remarkably short period of time, largely due to the client relationships I built as Director of Business Development.

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At Underbelly, I built and oversaw relationships with Facebook, Headspace, Instagram, Forward, Wingspan, and Netflix. I eventually grew and led our business development, studio coordinator, and project management teams. While my main responsibilities were Account Services, Business Development, and Operations, one of my favorite parts of Underbelly was having an impact in every area of the firm. I led design sprints, planned events, wrote content, facilitated panels, led planning sessions, painted walls, cleaned bathrooms: you name it. It was a transformative time that I will be forever grateful for.

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One challenging part of agency life is positioning yourself narrowly enough to attract the clients you want to work with and who will help you grow in your area of expertise as a firm. After nearly 8 years at Underbelly, I decided to move on to new challenges with a small, niche UX design team called OM where I currently serve as one of three Partners.