Commence Studio

I’m the VP of operations at DermaplanePro, a beauty and cosmetics company. We offer dermaplaning certification training, educational resources, and high-quality products and supplies to professionals in multiple countries, supporting their proficiency and success in dermaplaning services.

We needed to migrate our WooCommerce website to Shopify to enhance the customer experience, backend operations, and website efficiency.

Commence Studio migrated our WooCommerce website to Shopify. The team also handled a complete web redesign and created new subscriptions software and other apps to enhance our current operations. The team was responsible for the full website design, including layouts, pages, fonts, and colors. They also handled the backend configuration of B2B wholesale Shopify needs and apps to support our current business functions and make improvements.

We worked with 2–5 teammates from Commence Studio.

Someone referred Commence Studio to us. We chose them over other options because they had high ratings, were close to our geographic location, had pricing that fit our budget, offered good value for the cost, and had company values that aligned with ours.

$70,000+

We worked together from August–December 2025 for the website launch. And continuing on monthly CRO support.

Commence Studio redesigned and launched our website and created customer subscriptions. We also saw improvements in our CRO, handling customer data, and integrations with Klaviyo. It's only been one month since the launch, so we don't have too many metrics yet, but we did the launch without any hiccups or impact on our sales and revenue, which was a major win. A lot of customers have been able to navigate the website easily without help from us, and many were able to log in to their accounts easily without our help, again not impacting revenue.

Commence Studio delivered on time. We only pushed back the launch because we didn't want it to interfere with our Black Friday sale. We communicated via virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.

Commence Studio met every week to ensure we were always on the same page and provide updates on progress. They also fully pulled us in for the design process so we had buy-in and loved what they were doing.

They could have used more of the project management system ClickUp that they had. It seemed like we didn't use it after a while, but it could have helped us stay on track on our end for what we needed to accomplish to help support them. But the Slack channel we had really helped with our communication overall.

I am the Founder of Happy Mushroom Co.

Gourmet and medicinal mushroom company.

2-5 Employees

Commence designed for us a new logo, 5 product labels, and a full shopify e-commerce website.

Their project management and communication were top-notch. Project fell slightly behind original schedule - though not due to lack of engagement/management from Commence team. They always responded well to our needs.

Virtual Meeting

The quality of their work, their genuine care for the success of our company, the great team we worked with, and our aligned values of quality and sustainability.

Nothing major comes to mind. Overall very happy. We did go past the deadline on our project, but a lot of that was due to things on our end and we did not specify that we were in a huge rush for our project and we communicated in the beginning that timeframe was not a high priority.

I am the Co-Founder & CMO of MessageDesk

MessageDesk is a shared team SMS inbox that helps businesses and organizations route, assign and respond to conversations.

2-5 Employees

Objective: Develop a cohesive, distinct and flexible corporate identity for MessageDesk. Key result: MessageDesk brand and assets are competitively distinct and compelling to our audience. Key result: Develop flexible, repurposable visual brand assets for display in both print and web. Key result: Create website UI/UX mockups that present MessageDesk with clarity Key result: Create an intro video that visually describes what MessageDesk is, how it works and who its for. Key result: Photograph the entire MessageDesk team

The most measurable outcomes were simply producing brand assets and deliverables on time. We tasked Commence with creating a complete corporate identity and we asked for it on a timeline. They did more than deliver.

We intentionaly left much of the project management up to them. Our only ask was to have various assets delivered to us within reasonable timelines. Aside from that, what we appreciated at MessageDesk was how well Commence explored options and presented creative pathways to us.

Like us, Commence is a small and scrappy team. We were able to bond around that, and working with them felt very intimate and friendly. Instead of working with a larger agency or design house where you feel like you're a secondary consideration, we felt like we were first in line. Not to mention...

Asset handoff could have potentially been a bit cleaner. Instead of a single asset share, some assets we're first delivered and then later revised toward the conclusion of the project. This is less on Commence as we were pushing to get an initial brand identity out in public as soon as possible. Naturally, there was a little bit of tweaking that occurred up until the conclusion of the project.

I’m an executive at an online clothing company.

We wanted to redesign and rebuild our website.

Commence Studio did Shopify e-commerce development for us — the main feature was to allow users to purchase clothing through our platform. They also did custom coding based on our requirements.

We worked with four Commence Studio team members, including Matthew (Founder), a web developer, a project manager, and a creative director.

I knew about their work because they’re local to our city.

We spent around $13,000 with them.

We worked together from July–December 2022.

The site's quality was great, and I was delighted with the final product.

They were responsive and met deadlines throughout the process. Regarding tools and communication, we used email, Zoom, and Google Meet.

Their team was knowledgeable in their space and delivered according to our realistic expectations, which was outstanding.

They could improve their communication in the first steps of the project.

Maintain regular communication with them.

I’m the former e-commerce director and the current director of acquisitions for Death Wish Coffee Company.

We’d recently developed and launched a new website in July 2021, and our vendor dismantled their development team right after the launch, so we were searching for a new development team to help us out. Beyond this support, we were transitioning from one subscription platform to another, so we needed a developer to handle some of the technical and backend tasks involved in the migration.

Our primary goal was to generate sales: core coffee products, merchandise, and a subscription service. These are D2C transactions and subscriptions. The development has all taken place in Shopify.

We work with around four people, though I know there are a few people behind the scenes. Specifically, we’ve been working with Alisha (Frontend Web Developer) — she’s in the role of senior technical engineer and is one of the most incredible people I’ve interacted with. We’re also working with a frontend UI designer, a project manager, and the founder. The founder stays involved to make sure the Commence team is accomplishing our goals.

We reached out to a number of firms through an RFP and connected with Commence. They were up against a number of larger agencies, but we wanted to bring on a partner that not only had sufficient resources but also had the required experience. They had the acumen and technical skill to instill confidence and trust in their organization, so even though they didn’t have the specific migration experience we were looking for, we knew they would handle everything well.

The cost is around $60,000–$75,000.

We’ve been working together since September 2021.

One of the tools that we use is called Quantum Metric, and it allows us to find and quantify areas of user friction. Say that there’s an issue with our add-to-cart functionality, Quantum Metric will allow us to quantify the impact this has on our sales and, thus, prioritize our fixes. After the second quarter of 2022, we have around $200,000 in sales value we can recoup from site fixes when we make them. If the math holds that will be around $800,000–$1 million in one year. This return on our investment — Commence making these fixes — is our biggest metric.

They’re an A+ with project management. Commence has been great about holding us to the same measures of transparency that we hold them to, and we do the same to them. We trust one another’s expertise and do not shy away from disagreement. Everyone is highly professional. There were a few false starts around the beginning of the migration, but we all made the necessary adjustments and modified our timelines to be more realistic. They’ve done a great job of telling us what we need to hear.

They were great at managing our expectations and then overdelivering on those expectations.

There’s always room for improvement, but the only thing I can think of is if they had a larger team. They would be able to expand their services and help us out a little bit more. There’s nothing wrong with how they’re supporting us right now, but it’s always nice to have extra resources. For example, they could bring on contractors to fil a certain requirement if they don’t possess that capability in-house.

Interview them as much as they interview you. Don’t be afraid to push back and welcome pushback against yourself. Commence always speaks intentionally and provides value with everything they say.