Case study · Partnership

Cura

An eight-year relationship that started in a meeting room and turned into a partnership.

Where it started: Google Be Internet Awesome, 2018
Then: Jelena Group · Habu
Now: Cura — founding team 2020–2023, advisor since

How a client becomes a partner →

Started in a room

Jennifer Elena Romano on Google PR. We ran creative. That was 2018.

Four organizations

Google, Jelena Group, Habu, then Cura — same relationship, deeper each time.

Judgment about behavior

Career readiness is a behavior problem before it is a branding problem.

The story

Every relationship on this site started as one project.

I met Jennifer Elena Romano in a meeting room in Los Angeles. She was running PR on Google's Be Internet Awesome launch for the Hispanic market, we were the creative branch inside a three-agency partnership, and together we worked on turning a virtual world into a room full of families.

After seeing how we worked, she wanted us as the creative partner of Jelena Group, her own PR firm. Then she brought us in alongside her while she was serving as CMO at Habu. Same pattern each time, a little further inside the business.

In 2020 she invited me onto the founding team of Cura, a career readiness platform she was starting from nothing. We handled marketing and design while it went from an idea to a working product. We stepped back from the founding team in 2023 due to our own growth, and have been an advisor since.

Years since the room where we met

Organizations that one relationship has carried into

Introduction, in one meeting room, behind all of it

How a client becomes a partner

None of this was a business development plan.

Each step happened because the last one worked.

2018

Google

Jennifer ran PR, we ran creative. First time in the same room.
2018–2020

Jelena Group

Creative partner for her own PR firm.
2019

Habu

She became CMO. We came along for marketing and design.
2020

Cura's founding team

Marketing and design from an idea to a working platform.
2023–now

Advisor

Stepped back from founding team, stayed on engagement and design.

What Cura actually buys is judgment about behavior. How do you get a twenty-two-year-old to keep showing up to something that pays off in two years?

Talk to us

What we made

Pitch decks, product, and the narrative investors absorb in one pass.

Read the Google project first — that is where this relationship started.

Pitch decks and investor narrative
Whitepapers and long-form positioning
Marketing assets and brand system
Infographics and data visualization
UX and UI guidance across the Cura app
Gamification and engagement design

Every relationship on this site started as one project.

This one shows where they go when they work.

Alejandro Guzman was a member of Cura's founding team from 2020 to 2023 and has served as an advisor since.