Department Builds
Three hires, a pipeline with defined stages, and the materials for every step — pointed at revenue from week one.
WHAT WAS BUILT
Three hires, a pipeline with defined stages, and the materials for every step — pointed at revenue from week one.
Every touchpoint moved upmarket so a machine-learning build engine read as precision, not penny-pinching.
Six markets scored and selected in a three-day sprint; New Jersey and Dallas led, with Bonneville and Hearst media deals behind them.
THE BRAND SPRINT
Stephen ran leadership through a Google Ventures–style brand sprint and turned the output into Castle’s first brand guidelines: Midnight Cobalt, Lunar Quartz, and Concrete on a 60-30-10 rule, Glacial Indifference over Montserrat, logo construction rules, and on-brand vs. off-brand writing. The identity you’re looking at right now is that guide, rebuilt as a web page.
THE BRAND BOOK Castle Brand Guidelines V1.0 Palette, typography, logo construction, tone of voice, on-brand vs. off-brand writing. The output of the sprint, as a PDF. Open the PDF → 3 MB 
THE WEBSITE
The original site was essentially basic HTML in the old bright-blue identity. Stephen rebuilt it as a WordPress ecosystem with real lead-generation pathways, a blog, an SEO structure, and a platform that could scale into new markets.
ONE PROBLEM
Castle was operating without an adequate trademark — and Castle Construction had rights that created a conflict. Stephen took ownership of the licensing negotiation, and when the writing was on the wall, the company needed a new identity. A rebrand normally takes six weeks. There were two.
Naming brief. Hundreds of candidates. Shortlist. Trademark prescreen. Presentation. Fourteen days with brand strategist Rob Meyerson — and a new name.
THE REBRAND
The name that came out of the sprint: warmer, ownable, and pointed at the life inside the house rather than the fortress around it. Same midnight and quartz, a new voice. The frameworks Stephen learned working with Rob Meyerson still shape how he approaches brand strategy today.
Three weeks before the press launch, the company went under.
A team, a brand, a new name, a website, a pipeline, media contracts — and a business underneath that couldn’t survive to use them.