This is vacation on the other hand. Warm beach, the ocean (!!!), and my family. We’re taking it slow and business is kept to an absolute minimum. I know how it sounds to talk about going on vacation with everything going on right now but for me it’s in those quiet moments that my best thinking happens and it’s not that I’m trying to think about work but when you’re at your desk with 1,000 tabs open, jumping from meeting to meeting, you can’t think because you’re unfocused and forced to react.

I don’t know when it’ll happen but at some point, some blocker I’ve had is going to disappear on this trip and I’ll be back raring to go next week. You don’t need to hop on a flight to have that moment but you do need to close that laptop (and phone and tablet).

I’ve had this idea for a passive income stream for about two years. It’s a web/CMS infrastructure project that aligns strongly with The Creative Brand mission to help brands scale. There was one issue, I needed a designer and a really good on at that.

I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of incredible designers in my career but my #1 has always been Jenn Proud. We met about 8 years ago while I was still a dev and Jenn was freelancing at HubSpot. In time I became head of creative and Jenn was director of design and we launched hit after hit over the years earning the business many 100s of millions in ARR in the process.

Jenn was down to partner and so we started meeting up one day a week to work on this thing. For two people working independently, having a buddy again was huge. We could BS while simultaneously calling each other on our own BS—I missed that. The deeper we got into this project, the more fun we had.

About a month in we realized that this project wasn’t a one and done, it was the start of something else. On January 6, 2025 we acquired the domain and OhSnap! was officially born.

Quick aside: the timing on this is extremely coincidental but I was a guest on the Exit Five podcast with Dave Gerhardt. It was the first time I spoke about OhSnap! publicly and the episode premiered on Thursday.

Oh snap, it’s OhSnap! (too much??)

Where did the name come from?

Every time I mention the name—whether it’s to myself or to someone else—a smile usually appears. “Oh snap” is one of those silly things that every kid says at one point or another about something really cool and we want that reaction to our work.

But we didn’t have a name when we decided to start an agency, we just kept getting excited at the prospect of working together again and figuring out our differentiators. Every new realization led to an audible “oh snap” and then one day it just became clear that that was the name (Jenn is giving me credit for it and I’ll happily take that W).

Here’s the cool thing though, it has a secondary meaning (which will make more sense when I dig into the why). Jenn and I both believe in modularity within brand and there’s no greater modular system than LEGOs. And what do LEGOs do? They snap together! That’s right, OhSnap! is all about cool work that also builds on top of each other to scale because if it looks good but doesn’t work for you then what’s the point?

Our POV is why we exist

I don’t know that we’ve truly formalized our why on paper but that last line above is probably as close as it gets—if it looks good but doesn’t work for you then what’s the point? This is something we both saw at HubSpot and this is something we’ve continued to see while out on our own.

You have these beautiful brands with pretty words behind them and exciting visuals that are locked away in design tools like Photoshop or Illustrator and in overly complex guidelines that no one understands. Then you have the Marketers who have access to Canva and other tools but then don’t have usable templates or training on how to use them. The company is investing in brand but because it’s locked away in a PDF it doesn’t go anywhere.

You have overworked Creatives, frustrated Marketers, and unsatisfied customers. They’re dealing with inconsistent everything from the way things look on the website and social to how they’re treated between marketing, sales, and CS. Why should they pay you any money?

Investing in Brand is then considered a failure and all of the budget goes to paid ads (which don’t pay off because they look awful).

BUT…

If you had a thoughtful brand strategy with a fire visual identity that was systematized, and built into the tools your team needs (Canva, Air, Capsule, your CMS, Google, etc.). If you then pair those resources with the right enablement and roll out strategy it’s game on! This is what we believe.

And it’s not even like you need all of these tools on day one to be successful. When your strategy is built the wrong way, you can snap on new tools and versions as you go.

But why start an agency?

In the convo with Lashay, I asked her what’s next. She says “I don’t like to use the A word—which is agency. It’s a dirty word to me.” This feeling isn’t uncommon within the marketing industry and if I’m being honest, it’s generally deserved.

Agencies are known for bait and switch tactics, mysterious pricing, and not being good at any one thing in particular. I think that’s why we’ve seen the rise of niches in recent years—it’s why I started The Creative Brand.

But what I quickly learned about hyper-specialization is that you can’t solve all of the problems you want to and that you need to makes promises you can’t deliver on yourself.

Attempting to solve all of the things

When I look at the work I do with The Creative Brand it focuses on two things primarily. The first is creative ops and scaling. The second is brand strategy. When I think about those things through the lens of OhSnap! that means the very end and the very beginning. That means there are entire workstreams completely out of my control that I have to rely on. And believe me if I come into a situation where the brand strategy exists but it’s not good, the outcomes are never as good as they can be.

Making promises you can’t deliver on

If I’m working on something that requires design work or dev work—I’m neither a designer nor a dev anymore—that means I need to bring in help. There’s nothing wrong with help but you need to trust the help you bring in especially if you’re making promises about the outcomes. On top of that, you need to pay people which cuts into margins pretty quickly

Was starting an agency the only way to do this? Probably not but it was the way that felt natural to us and it allowed us to still specialize without hyper-specializing. We’re building brand systems and in some cases some a la carte pieces within that but we’re not doing it all. I love that even on day one we have a list of projects that we just say no to.

Early reactions

Not to pat ourselves on the back too hard but people seem to be resonating pretty strongly with the concept.

Some nice launch quotes

We also have some amazing people from companies like Etsy, Owner.com, Zappi, Watershed, Funnel, and others saying really nice things about us. And while that’s great and all what I’m excited about is:

• the three meetings we booked in our first week of business—two of which are with public companies

• the three other qualified leads we have that we’re talking to

• the one “not sales qualified” lead 😂

• the multiple six-figure proposals we’ve shipped that we haven’t been ghosted on

• the partnership with Canva

• the two other partnership conversations we’re having—both of which would be the first for these software companies

None of this means anything if we don’t close these deals but let’s just say it took a lot longer to start my first conversations with The Creative Brand. That POV is starting to feel like it’s a secret weapon.

The Creative Brand

Speaking of The Creative Brand, it’s not going anywhere. I love this company and I think it has a renewed purpose now. It’s going to be focused on me and my thought leadership work. That means this newsletter, the podcast, speaking gigs*, coaching, and advisory work.

*Save $200 on the Henry Stewart Creative Operations Summit New York with code DMITRYSHAMIS200

If you want to work with Dmitry, hit up The Creative Brand. If you want to build a dope brand, it’s OhSnap! for you. But this is all more for tax purposes so don’t worry too much, just reach out and I’ll make it happen for you.

You should work with OhSnap! I mean, come on… what did you think I was going to pitch?

The best brands look good, are usable, and scale with you as you grow. They’re built on a foundation of strong strategy, great design, and technology that enables your team to do their best work without needing to go through kickoffs, gatekeepers, or endless rounds of approvals.

If your brand feels lacking. If you can’t get your team on the same page. If everything just feels too hard. Let us help.