Parvessh Agarwal
Founder & CEO
An entrepreneur at heart. He links business analysis, strategy, clear goals and ROI to practical technology.
LinkedIn →Hire brand strategists
who back your brand position with research.
A dedicated brand strategist who does the thinking before the design work starts. They study your market and test how your positioning lands with buyers. Then they write a brief your design or copy team can follow without guessing. Each strategist is vetted on real positioning and naming work before they see yours. They work inside your review cycle, and you can scale up or down each month without a hiring cycle. You interview the strategist who would run the work before anything is signed.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
Tell us about the role
Start Your Enquiry
Send a short brief. Once we have a complete brief, we confirm the date you will receive your itemised proposal.
What you get
Hiring a brand strategist through PixelCrayons gets you a vetted specialist in positioning and brand structure inside your team. They research your competitors, define your market and test your messages. Then they turn that into naming decisions, a brand structure, voice rules and a brief your design team can use. You interview the strategist first and scale monthly.
- Vetted on real positioning and naming workEvery strategist has taken a naming or positioning decision through to a written brief they can defend.
- A second strategist briefed on your market from day oneA named coordinator, an escalation contact and a second strategist briefed on your market.
- Working inside your teamYour stand-ups, stakeholder workshops and review cycle, in the room where positioning is argued.
Our work
See what we've built
and the results it brought.
Real projects for real clients, with results we can show.
2004
Established
500+
Agencies served
4,500+
Projects delivered
340%
Revenue growth · 7 months
eCommerce
+127%
Organic traffic · 5 months
SaaS
85%
Faster delivery · backlog cleared
via agency partner
Technologies we work with
- Commerce and web
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- WordPress
- Webflow
- Next.js
- Marketing
- Google Ads
- Meta Ads
- GA4
- Klaviyo
- Cloud
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- AI models
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Google Gemini
- Build and deploy
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- GitHub Actions
- CRM and automation
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Zapier
- n8n
Product names and marks are trademarks of their owners. Naming a technology means our teams build with it. It does not mean a partnership, certification or endorsement.
Monthly rate for this hire
From $2,800per month, 160 hoursSenior specialists from $4,000, quoted per person.
Direct prices for brands and companies buying for themselves.
What they cover
Positioning and brand structure,
written down with the reasons.
This is not a consultant who runs a tagline workshop and leaves. Their job is the decision under every asset: what your brand is, what it is not, and why. Each decision is backed by research your team can check.
Positioning and research
- Competitor and market research: who else claims the space, and where there is room
- Category definition: naming the market you compete in before naming the brand within it
- Positioning and key messages that still work once your sales team and landing pages use them
- Audience groups based on how buyers describe the problem, not a persona template
- Message testing: checking a claim works before it goes on anything permanent
Brand structure and naming
- Naming for the company, a product line, or a sub-brand that must sit clearly next to the parent
- Brand portfolio structure: one master brand, separate brands, or the mix most companies need
- Voice and tone rules people can actually use, not a mood board of adjectives
- Brand story and message order: one-line, one-paragraph and one-page versions of the same story
- Naming and structure decisions written down with the reasons, so nobody has to guess why later
Briefs, workshops and decisions
- Turning the strategy into a creative brief your design or copy team can work from directly
- Stakeholder workshops that bring disagreements out early, before design review three rounds in
- Defending a positioning choice with the research behind it, not the loudest opinion in the room
- A clear handover to the design team, ours or yours, on exactly what the strategy needs them to build
- Knowing when the honest answer is 'the positioning is fine, the execution isn't,' and saying so
In practice
What a brand strategist
works on each month.
What the work looks like after the kick-off, and how to set it up so the positioning gets through review.
The work between the workshops
Workshops are the part you see. Most of the time goes on reading. That means competitor sites, sales call notes, reviews and support tickets. It also means the words customers use when they describe the problem to each other. From that, the strategist drafts a positioning statement. They test it against the objections your sales team hears, then rewrite it. Naming work runs the same way. They build a long list and run trademark and domain checks. Then they argue a short list on paper before anyone falls for a favourite. Each week ends with a written update: what was decided, what is open, and who weighs in next.
Signs worth listening for
Ask them to talk you through a positioning they wrote that later changed. A strong strategist explains what the research said and what the business pushed back on. They also say why the final version was the right compromise. A weak one shows you a mood board. Give them your homepage headline and ask who it leaves out. Good candidates answer quickly and without flattery. Listen for whether they separate the market from the brand. Check they can say plainly what a brief for a designer would contain. If every answer ends in another workshop, keep looking.
Why these projects stall
Usually the wrong people are in the room, or the right person arrives late. A founder who skips the early sessions and rewrites the positioning at sign-off costs you a month. Before day one, name the person who makes the final call. Put their review dates in the diary. Gather what already exists: past brand work, customer research and win and loss notes from sales. Add any names you have already ruled out, with the reasons. Agree what done looks like. It should be a signed-off positioning statement and a brief, not a general feeling that the brand is clearer.
Who picks up the brief next
The strategist's last job is a brief someone else can build from. A graphic designer takes it into identity and layout. A copywriter takes the voice rules into the website and sales material. A content or paid media team takes the key messages into campaigns. The handover works best when those people see the brief in draft, not for the first time at launch. So invite them to the final review. If your brand is clear but the website does not show it, you need execution. A good strategist will tell you that.
How it works
How hiring works,
from brief to first day.
Start
Brief and a call
We sign an NDA and you tell us about your brand, your market and the decision in front of you.
Once the brief is complete
Proposal and interview
We confirm when the proposal will arrive and put forward the strategist whose positioning work fits. You interview them before anything is signed. If the fit is wrong, we propose someone else.
Your decision
You sign off
You confirm the scope, the payment and the access we need. Nothing starts before this.
Typically 2 to 3 business days later
The work starts
They review your existing research and past positioning work, map who makes the decisions, and join your review routine.
Every month
Scale up or down
Add a researcher or a second strategist for a bigger scope, such as a rebrand or a new market. Step down once the brand structure is set.
You make requests, give approvals and see the weekly review in your Prism workspace. Each decision is written down with the result it was meant to bring. See how Prism runs the work →
Get a Proposal
Meet the people who will do the work before you sign
Why through us
Why hire through us:
the strategist and the written record behind them.
Hiring a strategist gets you their view of your market. Hiring through a company that delivers this work every day adds support around that view. Each decision is written down and passed to whoever builds next.
Vetted on real positioning and naming work
Every strategist in our team has taken a naming or positioning decision through to a written brief. That brief met our own delivery standards and could be defended, before they joined a client project. A deck shows how someone presents. Their track record shows whether their position held up. It had to survive pushback from a design team, a sales team and a competitor.
A second strategist briefed on your market from day one
You get a named coordinator, an escalation contact and a named second strategist. The second strategist is briefed from day one, including the market research and decision log. If the first strategist is on leave or leaves, the second steps in without a slow start. A freelance brand strategist cannot offer this. An in-house hire needs a whole department behind them to get it. You get the strategist and the cover that keeps your positioning work moving.
Working inside your team
Your stand-ups, your stakeholder workshops, your review cycle. Dedicated means sitting in the room where the positioning gets argued over. They do not deliver a document and disappear before the questions start.
A brief the next team can actually use
The brief is written for whoever builds from it next: our design team, yours, or another agency. It includes the naming, the voice rules and the reasons, not just the adjectives. If you ever wonder why a decision was made, the document answers before we have to.
Side by side
Hiring on your own,
compared with hiring through us.
An in-house hire is still right when brand strategy is a permanent, central job for your business. We will say so when it is. This page is for every other case, including a one-time rebrand or repositioning.
| Hiring it yourself | Through PixelCrayons | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a working strategist | A full recruiting cycle: sourcing, portfolio review, interviews and notice periods | Eligible engagements can typically start within two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed |
| Vetting | Case study review and interviews: you only learn if the positioning holds once it is tested | A track record on real positioning and naming decisions, held to our standards and reviewed against results |
| Management work | All yours: running workshops, getting people to agree, documentation and cover | A named PM and workshop running are included; you direct the strategy, not the scheduling around it |
| Scaling | A new hiring cycle each way: months to grow, an awkward conversation to shrink | Resize monthly: add a researcher for a rebrand, step down once the brand structure is set |
| Risk when it doesn't work | A wrong hire costs a quarter and leaves a half-argued position nobody trusts | If the fit is wrong, we propose someone else, who starts from the research and reasons, not a blank page |
Who is accountable
The people responsible
for your work.
Saundaraya Gupta
Technical Manager
Brings technical work, client updates and project management together, so work moves smoothly from brief to launch.
LinkedIn →Every engagement
A named coordinator and escalation contact
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Before you sign
Our commitments
Each one says where it applies and links to its full terms.
Time-zone overlap
At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast.
Managed specialists only; not a staffing promise for project teams.
Full termsClear IP & Ownership Terms
Your materials remain yours. Bespoke deliverable rights, licences and handover are agreed before work starts.
All engagements.
Full termsClear Delivery & Escalation Ownership
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Full termsWhy not just hire a freelancer?
A freelancer can be the right choice for a single, well-defined task. We are set up for work that needs an accountable team: a named coordinator, delivery reviewed by QA and a senior lead before release, and continuity arrangements written into the engagement. Confidentiality, ownership and escalation terms are agreed in writing before work starts.
How does time-zone overlap work?
Your engineers work at least four hours a day inside your core working hours. We set the window with you before the engagement starts and hold it for as long as the engagement runs. For the US West Coast the live overlap is two hours each morning, with a written handover at the end of every Indian day. We do not run night shifts: engineers who work nights leave quickly, and keeping the same people on your team matters more to us than a longer overlap.
Can we try you before we commit?
For eligible managed specialists, yes: up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. Stop within it and eligible trial hours are free; continue and they're billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work stays ours. Project work and other roles get a paid pilot with scope, acceptance criteria, duration and fee agreed first.
What if we want to stop?
Cancellation, notice and any renewal terms are written into your proposal or statement of work before you accept it. If an engagement ends early, we hand over completed, paid-for work and list any unfinished work separately. For an eligible specialist trial, you can stop within the trial window and pay nothing for eligible trial hours.
How we handle claims, credentials and your data: group credentials, dated ratings, how case figures are signed off, client permissions and data handling.
How we vet
How we vet a brand strategist
and what to ask them.
A positioning only proves itself once it is tested. So our vetting looks at real positioning and naming decisions. It also checks the strategist can turn a view into a brief someone else can build from.
- 01Shortlist on real positioning workWe put forward the strategist whose positioning and naming work fits your brand, market and decision. That work met our own standards and was reviewed against results. A real positioning brief they wrote is available under NDA on request.
- 02Interview on a positioning that changedAsk them to talk through one they wrote that later changed. What did the research say, and what did the business push back on? Why was the final version the right compromise? A weak candidate shows you a mood board.
- 03Test them on your homepage headlineAsk who it leaves out. Good candidates answer quickly and without flattery, and separate the market from the brand. They can say plainly what a brief for a designer would contain. If every answer ends in another workshop, keep looking.
- 04First month: one agreed resultOnce started, they write up which existing research is usable and what needs redoing. Then the first month's deliverable is agreed and the first workshop is booked. Done means a signed-off positioning statement and a brief.
Questions
Frequently
asked.
Eligible work can typically start two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed. Once we have a complete brief, we confirm when your proposal will arrive. You interview the strategist before anything is signed. If there is no research to start from, the first sessions build the picture of your competitors and market.
It starts with an NDA, then access to any research, brand guidelines or past positioning work. The strategist writes up what is usable and what needs redoing. Once you agree the first month's deliverable, the first workshop is booked. They join your stakeholder reviews from week one, so onboarding happens inside your process, not next to it.
A brand strategist decides what your brand says and stands for, then writes it down as a brief. That covers positioning, market, naming and voice rules. A graphic designer makes that brief look right: the logo, identity system and collateral. One comes before the other, and they are not swappable. If execution is what you need, see /hire/brand-graphic-designers instead. Some projects need both, in that order.
Yes, one strategist covers most positioning, naming and brand structure work. A researcher joins when the competitor picture is large, such as a crowded market or several countries. A second strategist joins when a portfolio change runs alongside a rebrand. The monthly resize works both ways. We would rather start you small than sell you a team you do not need.
Tell us early: if the fit is wrong, we propose someone else. The new strategist gets the first one's research notes, positioning drafts and workshop results. So a switch costs days, not a restart. Your proposal also names a second strategist and says whether their cover is priced into the monthly rate.
It depends on how close to your decisions the work needs to sit. A dedicated strategist joins your stakeholder workshops and review cycle, where positioning gets argued over. They do not deliver a document and disappear. It scales monthly and suits a one-time rebrand or repositioning too. Either way, the brief is written for whoever builds from it next.
Interview your brand strategist
before you sign anything.
Tell us about your brand and the decision you face. Then meet the actual strategist before anything is signed. If you need execution rather than positioning, we will say so on the first call.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
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