Discover how one Bay-Area boutique

creative studio spends the bulk of their

time building brands and not managing
tasks
“BasicOps has been transformative in how we efficiently manage the
work and our time which allows us to focus on creative outputs for our
clients. It sounds counterintuitive, but having time to do the work can
often be the most challenging part of complex collaborative projects.”

-Marcus Colombano, Partner + Director of Strategy

Meet Pineapple:
• Industry: Creative Studio
• Location: The Bay Area
• Company Size: 6-10
 • Founded: 2017

Pineapple is a branding and creative studio located in the heart of the

beautiful Bay Area. With clients big and small, ranging from B2B tech
companies to up and coming Direct-to-Consumer brands, Pineapple
does strategy and design work with a lean team of some pretty
amazing creatives. Pineapple uses BasicOps to streamline the
administrative work that no creative tends to love: managing project
plans, tasks and timelines. The team is freed up to focus on what
their clients need most, great creative outputs and flawless
execution.

Pineapple has used BasicOps from its earliest days. As a small, new
team they rallied around a desire to do exceptional and out-of-the-
box creative work. With diverse backgrounds from both the in-house
and agency side, they knew the biggest challenge ahead would be
managing projects and timelines efficiently in the interest of
excellent client service.

“We’re not a team of project managers, we are strategists and

designers that need to manage projects. As a collective group, we had
used most productivity solutions from post-it notes and excel sheets
for day-to-day tasks and project management software like Asana
and TeamGantt for more complex operations. The issue was, the
features we wanted were always buried in more expensive versions
of the product.” said Marcus Colombano, Partner and Director of
Strategy at Pineapple.

BasicOps freed up the team to create a strong infrastructure of

buttoned-up processes from client onboarding and setting clear
milestones, all the way through to final asset handoff. As a team, key
members of each project can chat and collaborate through each step
of the project. This single source of truth for clients, project owners
and team members creates a centralized homebase that results in
first-class service and stellar creative that continues to wow clients.

Who In the Pineapple world is using

BasicOps?
There are four key groups that rely on BasicOps:

• In-house Team Members. Strategists, designers and writers

want to focus on the creative outputs that they own - that is
why they got into this business. “As a team, we really count on
each other to be responsible for our own independent work and
reliable when it comes to what our team needs from us.
BasicOps is the tool that enforces this accountability without
the dreaded burden of high-touch task management because it
is automated right there in the system,” says Graphic Designer,
Molly Drill
• Contractors. Both long and short-term contractors know that
the expectation is that when they work with Pineapple, they
will receive their tasks in BasicOps. For users that are not
actively in there on a day-to-day basis, they still receive their
notifications and can easily connect external apps like Slack
that support how they choose to work.
• Pineapple Partners. Marcus and his partner Paul are running
the business and also leading strategy, design, business
development and client relationships. They have to map out
their time wisely and be where they are most needed which can
change day-to-day. BasicOps makes it easy and relieves a lot of
the stress that comes with high demands on time.
 • Clients. While clients are not actively in BasicOps, Pineapple
uses timelines to visualize the project for clients. They set clear
milestones which inspires confidence that key dates will not be
missed and they can trust in the plan and timing of the project.

What are the features Pineapple can’t live

without?
Pineapple uses the full breadth of functionality, but there are a
handful of stand out features that the team has come to count on for
maximum productivity, collaboration and organization:

• Communication. Communication is what makes collaborative

work from anywhere possible. The Pineapple team is spread far
and wide across time zones but key information is readily
available so, wherever team members are, whenever they are
online, they’re connected and can communicate directly via
message or on tasks to keep project momentum at full speed.
• Notes. Several folks on the Pineapple team take free form notes
and ideate during meetings and brainstorms. Project Owners
and Leaders can delegate instantly and turn creative ideas right
into actionable task assignments via the Notes feature, which is
key for meeting client briefs and timelines. One team member
says, “It’s the kind of thing you want with you in every single
meeting.”
• Timeline. Pineapple uses the timeline feature with clients to
show week to week where each task falls, where milestones are
and how dependencies impact the greater timeline. By painting
a clear picture of how the project will move forward, they can
provide an informed, realistic launch date. It inspires
 confidence early which is key to a happy, long term client
relationship.
• Integration. Pineapple was a dispersed team before 2020 but
now, more than ever, they rely on being able to seamlessly
jump right from DM to Zoom or pull up a client document from
Google Drive. Being out of the office has made BasicOps an even
more essential part of the Pineapple tool kit. They can
incorporate most systems and apps that clients use for their
own operations.

Result: World Positive Report brought to

you by Pineapple with a key supporting role
by BasicOps
BasicOps has touched every project deliverable out of Pineapple in
one way or another. While Marcus and his team attribute many wins
in part to BasicOps, a recent 120-page report was a standout
achievement.

Their client, Obvious, a mission driven investment firm, planned to

release their first ever World Positive Report, highlighting the
incredible work being done by their portfolio companies. Pineapple
was tapped to execute a scope including Strategy, Design, Content
and Production of this data-rich branded editorial project.

BasicOps housed the many moving pieces, allowing them to work

back from an ambitious launch date and manage a large, complex
project. They launched on target and on time - which is always a win
in any studio’s book In addition to the report, the supporting assets
built a web experience on key channels like LinkedIn and Twitter to
really amplify the great work being done by these mission-driven
companies. Ultimately, the client was incredibly happy (success!) and
it was a collective win for all parties.

“Complex creative work is a bit like a relay race. You rely on your
teammates to get you what you need so you can build on it and pass it
to the next runner. BasicOps streamlines this process and allows us to
do it in an incredibly organized and collaborative way. We are a more
focused, productive organization because of BasicOps.”

-Marcus Colombano, Partner + Director of Strategy, Pineapple