The Savvy Digital Co. is a small studio that builds full digital operations for founders, brokers, and operators who care about taste. Brand, sites, AI, automation, content engines, agent teams. Below is a selection of work shipped in the last 24 months.
12+
Founders + operators served
9.1/10
Average digital presence liftPost engagement, internal audit
100%
Built in-house, no agency layer
Featured case study
CASE / 01
The Pelham Group NW. A digital operation for a 17-year practice.
Kim Pelham, Principal Broker/Real estate, Snohomish County WA/thepelhamgroupnw.com
Hero · live site capture
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Drop the final asset at /public/images/work/pelham-hero.jpg.
How we rebuilt a 17-year real estate practice into a full digital operation. Brand, site, listing engine, content factory, agent team. Nine weeks, two closings, a third on deck.
The problem
Kim is one of the most respected brokers in Snohomish County. A 102.3% sale-to-list ratio against the NWMLS county average of 100.2%, 40-plus years of life experience behind her work, a database of 1,700 contacts built over almost two decades. The digital presence did not match the practice. The old WordPress site scored 2.3 out of 10 on our internal audit. Listings were getting weak online traction. The newsletter was sporadic. There was no system for the database she had earned.
Our approach
We treated this like an enterprise rebuild, not a tune-up. New brand pulled from who Kim actually is. New custom-built site. New CRM stack on GHL via Savvy OS. A 20-agent Claude Code marketing team running the content factory Monday through Friday. The goal was not a prettier site. It was an operating system that lets Kim spend her time with clients, not chasing the next post.
2.3 to 9.1
Digital presence scoreOut of 10. From March 2026 to May 2026.
1,700
Contacts on a 7-touch nurtureDatabase wired into GHL
102.3%
Sale-to-list ratiovs NWMLS county average 100.2%
46%
Newsletter open rateVol. 1, 733 delivered. Industry average is 24%.
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01 / Identity
A brand built on her real life
We pulled the brand out of who Kim actually is. Walking alongside families through life's biggest transitions. Married 40-plus years to Brien. Deeply rooted in Everett. Forest green, clay, cream. Cormorant Garamond and Inter. Caveat for her signature. Voice rules that ban urgency tactics, exclamation marks in headlines, and dream-home clichés. The tagline that came out of it: real estate isn't about transactions, it's about people.
02 / Site
A site that scores 90-plus on its own audit
Custom HTML rebuild on thepelhamgroupnw.com. Schema markup, SEO, AEO, and GEO optimization. Per-neighborhood landing pages for Everett, Bothell, Snohomish, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mill Creek, Martha Lake, and Lake Stevens. Accessibility passed. A2P 10DLC compliant. Four lead magnets (Home Value Estimator, Staging Gallery, MLS Search, Repair Consultation) each wired into Savvy OS for automated nurture.
03 / Listings
A 7-asset campaign per active listing
Every active listing ships with a long-form blog post, a mini-podcast or video with Brien, broker-network outreach, syndication across nine surfaces, a Meta ad campaign with full operational playbook, a social cascade, and a database blast. Built from MLS data on day one, not week three. Potlatch Beach (Tulalip) and the Mukilteo split-entry on NWM2513590 both ran through the same machine.
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04 / Agent team
A 20-agent factory that ships every week
Marsha runs the agency. Five directors (Riley, Mara, Avery, Ren, Cora) run their departments. Fifteen specialists do the work. The full cycle, market research through drafting through brand QA, compliance, and scheduling, runs Monday through Friday. Kim never sees the agency. She sees the work. The single exception: Devon auto-texts her mobile when a hot lead surfaces, because speed is the moat.
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05 / Content
A newsletter she's actually proud to send
The Pelham Post ships on Fridays. Five numbered sections every issue: market read, featured listing, open house, local pick of the week, and a soft close for sellers on the fence. Vol. 1 went to 733 contacts with a 46 to 47% open rate and a 9% click-through on the second batch. Industry average is 24% open and 2% CTR. Vol. 2 followed the same format. The format is the product.
“
Wow, this really IS a $3M view. Pictures and video don't do it justice.
Open house visitor, 1406 Potlatch Beach Rd, May 2026
Stack and tooling
Custom HTML + CSS
GHL via Savvy OS
Follow Up Boss sync
Meta Ads Manager
Canva MCP
Schema.org / JSON-LD
20-agent Claude Code agency
Riverside
More work
Selected projects across software, real estate, nonprofit, and brand.
Every project below was built or co-built by Rachael. Quiet engagements live elsewhere. The thread that connects them: real taste, real systems, real shipping.
CASE / 02
2026/Education / Course Line
Savvy Academy
The Savvy Digital Co.
The umbrella brand and funnel engine for our own course line. Free AEO Audit Tool feeding a $47 Pro Audit tripwire, feeding the $497 to $1,997 AEO cohort, feeding a $5,000-plus done-with-you tier. Same Next.js shell every future course plugs into. We built the system for ourselves first, then started selling it.
Brand Studio design system: warm charcoal, IBM Plex Sans, Instrument Serif accents
Free + Pro AEO Audit Tool with 8 live signal checks
6 GHL Payment Links wired to redirect-after-payment flow
A structured co-homeownership company. Each co-owner holds a membership interest in a single-purpose LLC, with exclusive use of a private suite and shared use of common areas. We run the fractional CMO function: a brand language bible that doubles as an SEC compliance gate, four isolated audience journeys (buyer, owner, broker, investor), and a 21-agent factory with Helena as chief of staff.
Brand bible reconciled with brand.respace.co, SEC banned-term list as a gate
Four-journey audience separation enforced by Hugo at QA
3-tier broker partner program (Registered, Partner, Certified)
Recorded broker info sessions on Riverside, May 8 + May 15 + June 14
Weekly content factory across blog, newsletter, 9 social posts, YouTube
Image-first social standard, ghost re wordmark, two design tracks
8 confirmed attendees at first Certified Broker info session. $50 application fee gating the pipeline. Realtor.com article amplification cascade live.
Seattle's intelligence-driven professional network. Application-only. Positioned as the room behind the room, built by a former Columbia Tower Club GM, designed for the senior professionals CTC left behind when it closed after 41 years. Free public directory of 220-plus partner venues, plus a private Blackbook of curated members at $197 a month (founding) or $497 (standard).
Next.js 16 + Supabase + Stripe MVP, live and operational
Application gate, Vantage Type assessment auto-deploying to profiles
221-pin Mapbox directory, 9 seeded groups, masterminds and RSVPs
Stream Chat + Stream Video for member channels and livestream
Founding-rate window: $197/month, first 500, locked for life
Affiliate dashboard for partner clubs (50% revenue share at founding)
Founding member window through June 30, 2026. Partnership term sheet in motion with The Shop SODO.
A three-document partnership engagement with Matt Bell, founder of The Shop. GHL plus AI voice receptionist as the foot in the door, a one-page Vantage partnership term sheet as the upgrade SKU, and a strategic brief that positions the city itself as the clubhouse. Two of the three principals are former Columbia Tower Club leadership rebuilding what should have been there.
Editorial site mockup, Fraunces serif, bone-and-carbon palette, oxblood accent
GHL + AI voice receptionist proposal ($16K to $24K setup)
Vantage partnership term sheet, non-binding, $197 founding upgrade SKU
Strategic brief, City Is the Clubhouse thesis
24-month pro forma, solo vs partnership, 840 formulas
Pro forma shows 2.75x cumulative net retention in partnership vs solo. Founding window closes June 30, 2026.
Next.js 15
Motion (Framer)
Lenis
Tailwind v4
Fraunces
GHL
Jesse Rhodes Jr.
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CASE / 06
2026/Personal Brand / Thought Leadership
Jesse Rhodes Jr.
Jesse Rhodes Jr., Author and Board Chair
A weekly content factory for a published author, hospitality founder, and Board Chair of the Columbia Tower Club through its 41-year closure. Three pillars: leadership, entrepreneurship, community. Bridge posts that connect them so nothing reads like a silo. The CTC closure became the anchor narrative, pitched to Seattle Times and Puget Sound Business Journal while the story was live.
Three-pillar content architecture with bridge-post rotation
Weekly LinkedIn (3), Instagram (3 with carousel), Facebook (2)
Long-form blog, SEO + AEO optimized, ~1,000 to 1,100 words
GHL newsletter, 600px inline-CSS table layout
SMS welcome series, book buyer drip, broadcast templates
Media brief with press contacts and quote approvals
Weekly cadence locked. Speaking applications and ILA Global CFP in motion. CTC closure positioned Jesse as the named voice on professional community.
GHL
Claude Code
Notion
Riverside
YSK Events
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CASE / 07
2026/Nonprofit / Youth Sport
YSK Events
Pacific Northwest 501(c)(3)
A youth squash nonprofit on the LA28 Olympic pathway. Rachael's directive was blunt: this site doesn't seem as good anymore. We are porting their Lovable-built Vite site to a handcrafted Next.js 15 build with real typography, intentional motion, and donor-grade credibility. No purple gradients. No generic shadcn defaults. No AI-generic feel.
Brand audit and visual direction reset, real fonts not Inter everywhere
Next.js 15 App Router rebuild with strict TypeScript
Hero with looping muted YouTube background, 60 to 80 second window
Mobile + reduced-motion fallback to static poster
JSON-LD nonprofit schema, OG images, sitemap, robots
Lighthouse target: Performance 95+, Accessibility 95+, SEO 100
Donor-ready credibility. LA28 partner-facing. Netlify retired once parity is reached.
A live conversation series with Pacific Northwest leaders. We built the operating system: run-of-show docs, a Seattle media list, social cascade calendars, and a master audit tracker. Two confirmed engagements shipped through the same template, Carmen Best in spring and Oppenheimer plus Campbell in May. Repeatable run-of-show, not a one-off.
Run-of-show HTML with speaker bios and timeblock
Seattle media list, hand-built, xlsx
Social media post calendar across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook
Master audit tracker, xlsx
Sync agenda and pre-event prep documents
Reusable template for future speakers in the series
Two speakers shipped through the same template. Series ready to scale.
GHL
Riverside
Excel
Gmail
Canva
Training Arc
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CASE / 09
2026/Fitness / Web App
Training Arc
Internal Project
A mobile-first PWA for tracking training programs. Dark cosmic UI, gradient depth, instant-feeling interactions. No backend, no build step, single-file HTML built to feel native on iOS. Shipped in one evening as a proof of taste, not a product. It is here because it shows what we ship when nobody is looking.
Single-file HTML PWA, zero build step
Custom dark color system with radial backgrounds
iOS-native tap targets, safe-area aware
Local storage workout history
Apple touch icon and PWA manifest
Internal tool. Shipped as a one-evening proof of taste.
HTML
CSS
Vanilla JS
PWA
LocalStorage
Capabilities
Nine disciplines. One operator.
We don't subcontract the work. Rachael leads every engagement, and the rest of the team is a roster of Claude Code agents tuned to the voice and the brand. That's why the output reads like one mind.
01
Brand systems
Voice guides, design tokens, identity that survives the founder being on vacation.
02
Websites
Next.js, Lovable, custom HTML. Built to score 90+ on their own audits.
03
AI engineering
AEO audits, retrieval pipelines, agent teams, schema markup, the works.
04
Content engines
Weekly factories that ship blog, newsletter, and social without a content manager.
05
GHL implementation
Memberships, checkout, automations, affiliate, A2P 10DLC, full stack inside one platform.
06
Paid media
Meta, LinkedIn, Google. Real attribution. Real exclusions. Real Cost Cap bidding.
07
Lead magnets
Calculators, audits, gated PDFs that earn their email twice over.
Pricing, positioning, launch calendars, sequencing. We pick the right fight first.
Methodology
How the work gets made.
Five steps. Not a framework you'll see on a webinar. A working rhythm we run on every engagement, from a single sales page to a full operation rebuild.
01
Discover
We listen for the real shape of the business.
Founder interviews, customer calls, an honest audit of the current operation. We're looking for the gap between what the brand says and what the business actually delivers. That gap is where the work is.
02
Define
We pick one fight and write it down.
A clear positioning, a clear audience, a clear offer. One sentence that the founder can repeat in their sleep. Everything else negotiates against that sentence.
03
Design
We build the brand and the system in the same week.
Tokens, voice, sales page, automation logic, agent personas. All in service of the offer. We resist the urge to invent before we've made the existing thing work.
04
Deploy
We ship the operation, not just the artifacts.
A site is not the win. A funnel that converts, an email cadence that runs without the founder, a content engine that ships every week, that's the win. We deploy the whole thing.
05
Iterate
We watch the numbers and tighten the loop.
Weekly analytics, monthly retros, quarterly direction-check. The brand stays. The mechanics keep getting sharper. Quiet, persistent, compounding improvement.
Want this for your business
Let's build the operation, not just the artwork.
We take a small number of engagements at a time. If your business is at the point where the right system would compound, send a note. We read every one.
