Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Vanessa Flores. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Vanessa, thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

When Andrés (my business partner) and I decided to join forces, we were looking for a name that reflected what we do, but not in a typical boring way. We wanted it to be clever, memorable and easy to remember; while also having somewhat of a double entendre, and not limiting to a specific niche or type of design. Andrés came up with the name, and then I had to come up with the visuals for it. I loved it from the Gert go, because it encompassed our both areas of business—graphic design and digital marketing. Graphic design is the HOOK, it’s what catches your eye, and keeps you looking. Digital Marketing is the BRIDGE, it’s how you connect that brand/product/service with it’s end consumer.
Some clients have actually hired us over other agencies not only because of our outstanding work for previous clients, but also because they love the fact that we put that much thought into our name.

Vanessa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a graphic designer turned entrepreneur who owns and runs a graphic design and digital marketing agency from Los Angeles, CA; and previously from Miami, FL. We’ve been in business as HOOK+BRIDGE for 6 years, servicing clients in the medical, hospitality, technology, bioscience, non-profit, food, beverage, consulting, and transportation industries… to mention a few.
In other words, we decided that rather than specializing in serving one industry, we would specialize in one design specialty, and service all industries. We’ve had the pleasure of creating brands from scratch, as well as rebranding existing ones. But we don’t limit our services to JUST brand development, we serve our clients with any design pieces they need, or want us to create for them, be it one pagers, pitch decks, backdrops, or app designs.
We feel super proud to have a solid team of creatives and marketers who thrive on delivering results to our clients, as well as growing and learning from each and every project we get in front of us.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I think the pandemic was specially hard for all small business owners who have payroll responsibilities. For us, we decided that we would do our best to not let go of any of our employees, as well as not miss any of their salary payments. We did however, give them notice that we were doing our best to pay everyone on time, but to be prepared in case we weren’t able to pay on time or at all. Because we had already been working together for a while, the entire team understood the situation and planned accordingly. Andrés and I did not receive salary for the first 6 months of the pandemic, to ensure that our employees were paid, and once we got over those 6 months and work started coming in again, we slowly went back to business as usual. It was a few scary months, but it all played out ok.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We’ve built 90% of our entire client portfolio from upwork.com. When we started out we sent emails to former clients, employers and business-owner friends letting them know that we were providing design and marketing services under a new name; while at the same time, submitting proposals to dozens of job postings on upwork every day. Upwork.com is a job in itself in the sense that you have to send a TON of proposals to land your first client on the platform. Once you do, and provided you deliver good results, it starts snowballing. We’ve been on the platform for 6 years now and have excellent reviews, and billed over 300K in the last 2 years.

Contact Info:

• Website: hookbridge.com

Image Credits
Vanessa Flores – Self taken