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ABOUT / THERESA + DAN

Two people. One studio.

We work directly with companies to turn complicated ideas, stubborn problems and occasional fires into brands, digital products, software and business systems that work.

A black-and-white photo grid of Theresa and Dan Hong, separately and together.
THERESA + DAN HONG

Small by design.
Senior by default.

We got tired of watching simple problems become complicated projects.

Big teams can do extraordinary work. They can also turn a decision that should take an afternoon into six meetings, three decks and a steering committee.

effitt was built around a different idea: keep the team senior, keep the distance between thinking and making extremely short, and judge the work by whether it succeeds.

Success is the KPI.

Everything else is process.

Theresa Hong

Co-Founder / Strategist / Storyteller / Professional Dot-Connector

Four portraits of Theresa Hong, mixing candid expressions and color and black-and-white photography.

Theresa makes complicated things make sense.

Which is useful, because most of the things she works on are complicated.

Her background spans healthcare, biologics, medical education, business development, brand strategy, sales, advocacy, communications, and the delicate art of getting very smart people to stop talking past one another.

She can take a clinical study, regulatory issue, commercial opportunity, product launch, reimbursement problem, half-formed business idea, or twelve-person meeting that has completely lost the plot and turn it into a clear story with an actual next step.

That ability has made her equally comfortable working with physicians, scientists, executives, sales teams, entrepreneurs, attorneys, manufacturers, investors, and occasionally people who believe a 94-slide PowerPoint counts as a strategy.

It does not.

At effitt, Theresa works at the intersection of strategy, communication, healthcare, and growth. She helps organizations understand what they actually have, why anyone should care, how to talk about it, and what they should do next.

She is particularly good at finding the useful idea buried beneath jargon, politics, organizational inertia, and unnecessary complexity.

Then she gives it a name, a plan, and usually a deadline.

Things Theresa Does

  • Business Strategy
  • Healthcare & Life Sciences Strategy
  • Brand Positioning
  • Messaging & Narrative
  • Product Strategy
  • Go-To-Market Planning
  • Sales Strategy
  • Business Development
  • Clinical & Scientific Communications
  • Medical Education
  • Regulatory Communications
  • Advocacy
  • Reimbursement Strategy
  • Executive Communications
  • Pitch Development
  • Proposal Development
  • Partnership Strategy
  • KOL Engagement
  • Program Development
  • Research & Competitive Intelligence
  • Content Strategy
  • Organizational Planning
  • Making People Understand What the Hell We’re Talking About

Particularly Good At

Turning technical information into human language.

Seeing the commercial story hiding inside the science.

Finding the question nobody in the room has asked yet.

Connecting people who should already know each other.

Knowing when a problem needs more research and when everyone just needs to make a decision.

Walking into chaos with a legal pad and leaving with a strategy.

Operating System

Curious. Direct. Persuasive. Relentlessly practical.

She likes smart ideas.

She likes useful ideas more.

And if the meeting could have been an email, she will eventually make it one.

Dan Hong

Co-Founder / Designer / Developer / Professional Figure-It-Out-er

Four portraits of Dan Hong, mixing candid expressions and color and black-and-white photography.

Dan is what happens when a designer refuses to stay in his lane.

He designs brands. Builds websites. Prototypes software. Develops products. Automates workflows. Shoots photographs. Directs creative. Writes code. Builds systems. Fixes things that were supposedly already fixed. And occasionally disappears down a technical rabbit hole because someone said, “I don’t think that can be done.”

That usually ends badly for the rabbit.

His work sits somewhere between design, technology, strategy, and compulsive problem solving. Dan is particularly good at taking an idea that exists as a sketch, conversation, napkin drawing, mildly unhinged text message, or “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and turning it into something people can actually see, use, buy, pitch, launch, or understand.

Over the years, that has meant everything from identity systems and websites to SaaS products, sales platforms, clinical technology, interactive experiences, photography, automation, AI workflows, presentations, prototypes, and the occasional piece of hardware that absolutely did not come with adequate instructions.

At effitt, Dan spends most of his time working in the dangerous territory between “we have an idea” and “holy shit, it works.”

Things Dan Does

  • Brand & Identity
  • Creative Direction
  • Web Design
  • UI / UX
  • Product Design
  • SaaS Design
  • Front-End Development
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Custom Software
  • AI Workflows & Automation
  • Systems Design
  • Information Architecture
  • Sales & Marketing Technology
  • Interactive Experiences
  • Photography
  • Art Direction
  • Presentation Design
  • Data Visualization
  • Technical Problem Solving
  • Product Strategy
  • Concept Development
  • Research
  • Making Complicated Things Feel Obvious

Particularly Good At

Turning vague ideas into tangible things.

Learning software he has absolutely no business knowing by tomorrow morning.

Finding the one stupid problem buried inside seventeen other problems.

Making technology feel less like technology.

Knowing when something needs another week of strategy and when it just needs somebody to say effitt and build the damn thing.

Operating System

Curious. Visual. Technical. Restless.

Success is the KPI.

Everything else is just paperwork.

Momentum beats ceremony.

The name started as the polite version of “fuck it.”

Not in the who cares? sense. In the we’ve talked about this long enough, let’s solve it sense.

That attitude still runs through the studio. Understand the problem. Make a decision. Build the thing. See whether it works. Fix it if it doesn’t.

No relay race.

The people in the first meeting are the people doing the work. We stay close enough to the problem that context doesn’t evaporate every time the project moves between disciplines.

We work well with founders, executives and teams who value speed, candor and direct access to the people doing the work.

How we can help

What are you working on?

That’s probably more interesting.

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