By Ninja

Together, different.

At By Ninja, I connect good people doing good things in businesses with good customers, and help them grow through strategic and thoughtful experiences. 

I don't just think outside the box, I fold the box into a paper crane. 

Our teams are brought together on a project basis to deliver exceptional creative outcomes. This keeps us agile, lean and efficient, while staying true to the outcome. We have delivered award-winning creative for startups, small businesses, state governments, and local and international beauty brands.

Visit our website to learn more👇
www.byninja.com.au

Creative Overlord

Freelance Graphic Designer

Design Ninjas

Design Ninjas is a subscription-based design service that brings lightning-fast creativity to the forefront. 

No frills, just skills.
After years of working alongside marketers, brand managers, co-designers, and agencies, I uncovered a common challenge – the need for high-quality design that's accessible and efficient. We believe that exceptional design should be within reach for everyone, and Design Ninjas is here to make it happen.

Check out the website to learn more👇
www.designninjas.au

Founder

Communify 

As a member of the Communications Committee I advise and support the Communify team on the strategy and execution of their marketing and communications plan.

Communify Queensland is an established community organisation providing a diverse range of services, from early childhood, mental health services to aged and disability services, including day respite and aged care packages. As one of Brisbane's largest and most active charities, Communify supports the community on all sides.

Communications Committee Member

Focused Marketing Solutions Pty Ltd

Lead Designer

QinetiQ Australia

Achievements:
QLD PICA Gold Award for the Flipper Book
National PICA Silver Award for the Flipper Book

Graphic Designer

Ashdown-Ingram

Assistant Senior Graphic Designer

Salton Group

Achievements:
Design of product which rated GfK top 10 for more than 5 months running
Developed a processes and training guide for New Product Development processes
Introduced a graphics brief system which reduced draft re-work by more than 50%.

Australian Department of Defence; and HTR Engineering and IT Professional Services

As a contractor to the Australian Department of Defence, I was responsible for the development and amendment of technical illustrations for a number of high priority projects. This position required me to obtain a Defence clearance at RESTRICTED level.

Technical Illustrator - contractor

RSEA Pty Ltd

Boeing Defence Australia

This position required me to obtain a Defence clearance at SECRET level.

Junior Graphic Designer

This position required me to obtain a Defence clearance at SECRET level.

Achievements:
Selected to participate in the Boeing Leadership Development Program
Finalist in the 2006 Boeing Young Leader Award
Nominated and short-listed for the 2006 Queensland Training Awards.

Technical Illustrator

For years I worked in the creative industry, delivering multi-million dollar projects for design houses that fell short on delivering value and ingenuity for their brands.

I found myself seeking more from an industry that offered low prospects for designers and brands alike — something that was creatively challenging, but also impactful. I had reached a turning point.

I freelanced as a designer while pursuing a mechanical engineering degree. A real change occurred when I began working with brands that shared my values, and that experience led to a profound transformation.

From this journey, By Ninja was born — a brand studio that differentiates itself through a deep commitment to customer intimacy and innovation.

We create meaningful impact, aligned to the values of the brands we work with. Our approach has earned us a reputation for excellence, exemplified by high retention and professional accolades.

Now, I empower beauty brands to craft unforgettable experiences that drive growth, through conscious branding and product design. 

We take your product idea from concept to consumer; crafting brand, design and packaging experiences for the conscious consumer. 

Our clients and their results are testament to our approach:

𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐂𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐚
👉 Cell Forté Serum Violet Grey top seller, selling out 3 times in 2 months. 
👉 BFCM D2C sales soared by 300%, with a 60% repurchase rate.

𝐑𝐄-𝐃𝐎𝐗 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐛
“Kathleen has an amazing ability to understand your needs and vision for your brand and translate that into a brand and product that exceed your expectations.”

𝐋𝐔𝐗𝐄 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐬
“They transformed not only our branding but also our brand voice and digital presence in such a way that our business has grown in triple digits since the start of the partnership.”
👉 Doubled traffic and checkout value.
👉 Increased customer retention.
👉 Triple-digit growth in 9 months.

𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩
👉 Featured in Vanity Fair and Beauty Independent for branding and sustainability.
👉 Reduced transport emissions by up to 90%.
👉 Increased D2C sales by 65% within 12 months.

𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞
👉 Reduced carbon footprint by 24%.
👉 Diverted >1 tonne of plastic from landfill.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬
👉 Minimised start-up costs.
👉 Mitigated product breakage.
👉 Eliminated ~0.3kg of carbon emissions per product.


Interested in working with me and my team:
🌟 Bespoke Branding & Product Design - www.byninja.com.au
⭐ Unlimited Graphic Design Support - www.designninjas.au 

Reach out to me kathleen@byninja.com.au

Kathleen Casford

Early Bird: Pre-orders & Restock

A Shopify pre-order & partial deposit app to help you capture a customer's commitment to buy now, not just than an expression of interest to buy later.

Run pre-order campaigns with real-time analytics to secure cash flow early and avoid lost sales.

Capture partial deposits as a commitment to buy and forecast demand before committing to inventory.

Back-in-stock email notifications & pre-order email sign-ups to capture expressions of interest as an early leading indicator.

1-min interactive demo: https://www.shopside.com.au/apps/early-bird-pre-order-back-order-app-for-shopify#demo

Co-Founder

Shopside

Our life's work is to build a collection of products where we'll always proudly be our first customers. Building them through compounding knowledge and network.

DiUS

Sold by the founders and the team's customer-centricity, I joined DiUS to work on one of their ventures Powersensor as their first dedicated marketing hire.

Powersensor is Australia's first inverter agnostic solar monitor, retrofittable and DIY install. Providing homeowners and businesses real-time energy data - from aggregate view down to an appliance level.

My role was part of the broader company-wide redundancy in May 2023.

Growth & Product Marketer

Vygo

Sold by the founders' conviction to deliver a better learning experience for students around the world, I joined Vygo as their first PMM hire. 

My role was part of the company-wide redundancy in Jan 2022.

Product Marketing Manager

Hot Pot Club

A 6-month bootstrapped project for myself to get hands-on experience in aspects beyond Marketing.

**Left our Shopify store online as a place to test Shopify apps we're building**

• 2 months of research and setup, 3 months (6 runs) to sell out all Starter Kits without any monetary discounts (5-figures revenue).
• Got hands-on experience in GTM, Positioning, Pricing, Packaging, Business Finance & Operations
• We broke even our investment early on, but couldn't scale due to inflation, lack of capital, and lack of internal alignment.
• We ended up learning lots about Voice of Customer, Product Procurement, Supply Chain & Logistics.

━━━━━━━━

We are Brisbane's first complete DIY Hot Pot Kit (Australia, actually):
https://hotpotclub.com.au/

Delivering everything you need for this East Asian food experience to your door.

Think of hot pot as an Asian fondue. Our kits are simple to set up, easy to clean after. It's hot pot made easy. Whether it's for a romantic date night at home, an easy weeknight dinner, or an entertaining dinner party menu.

Our organic broths are slow-cooked with local ingredients. No MSG and Vegan-friendly.

━━━━━━━━

We see Hot Pot Club™ as more than just delivering food conveniently to you. 

As local hot pot restaurants with decreasing qualities (and services) become increasingly expensive to eat at, it's about crafting and delivering a different (not just better) hot pot experience. 

From the very first customer touchpoint, to throughout the purchase process and afterwards.

Beyond Mondays

Deep question cards for team building.

Originally a 6-month bootstrapped project for myself to learn about Product Design, Manufacturing, and selling without reliance on ads.

Sold out my first batch during COVID, then continued to sell digital PDFs on Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/BeyondMondays

Kept the website live to test our Shopify apps:
https://beyondmondays.com/

Maker

YNC Agency

Joined YNC Agency to help launch a SaaS product they were building, with the expectation of the beta product to be launched in August 2020.

The agreement was to help with their agency's work, on Account Management and all things Growth & Product Marketing in the interim.

Unfortunately, their product’s beta version was never finished, so I resigned to look for other growth opportunities after waiting for a year.

Mainly worked on pre-market fit startups:
• Mobile app for automating recurring Bitcoin purchases: https://amber.app/
• Product management tool to build better products with less risk: http://primary.app/
• Whiteboard your next marketing plan using data: http://getfocus.co/

Growth Marketer

Josephmark

Joined Josephmark as their first Growth Marketing hire, as an experiment to incorporate Growth into their existing service offerings.

Unfortunately, I felt the timing wasn't right for this experiment, so I resigned to look for other opportunities after 6 months.

• Worked with the Commercial Director in exploring new revenue streams for Tammy Hembrow's Fitness app, Tammy Fit, as my main account.

• Analysed and reported on the full customer lifecycle results for Tammy Fit.

• Worked with the Product Manager and Content Writer to assist with new feature launches, Product roadmap, and backlog prioritisation.

• Collaborated with Josephmark’s developers on website & app tracking.

• Developed the social content and community strategy for Tammy Fit.

• Developed and executed the paid social strategy for Tammy Fit.

• Collaborated with the Content Writer to update and execute Josephmark’s
marketing strategy for brand awareness, outbound, and recruitment purposes.

• Provided marketing strategy recommendations for some of Josephmark’s
joint & owned ventures.

• Client liaison and account management.

Youfoodz

My initial role was to work on paid social and project management for the Performance Media team. 2 months into my role, I was assigned to lead the social media team.

In my short 8 months at Youfoodz, as a team we were able to consistently achieve incremental growth in weekly sales volume and revenue records. But this did not save us from cash flow issues - My role was part of the company-wide redundancy in June 2019, due to a failed product launch with no prior research done beforehand.

• Worked with the Brand & Marketing Manager to refine our social media strategy across all platforms to better align our activities with business goals. 

• Co-led the social media team with the Brand & Marketing Manager, providing guidance and mentorship to the team. 

• Refined the team's workflow and processes.

• Planned and executed Youfoodz’s paid & organic social media campaigns (for D2C, Retail and B2B).

• Oversaw budget allocation for all social media activities, including ads. 

• Identified new D2C audience sub-segments and their Jobs-to-be-done. 

• Experimented with new revenue streams: B2B deals (employee well-being package, gifting) and office catering.

• Analysed and reported on all paid social media campaigns and assisted with the reporting for organic social media activities.

• Managed creative briefing and media assets for all Performance Media activities (social, search, display, and programmatic).

• Reported on customer trends based on data and insights from social media activities, customer support tickets, and online desk research. Applied them to our ad campaigns and content.

• Conducted Competitor research.

Performance Media Specialist

Entain Australia - Home of Ladbrokes Australia and Neds

Joined Ladbrokes as their first social media strategist, to lead the team, set up processes and internal alignment between Brand, Content & Performance Media.

Towards the end of my probation I realised what they needed was a Product Marketer. I joined Youfoodz shortly after. 

• Developed a social media strategy across all social platforms.

• Developed structure and processes around the team’s workflow, providing mentorship to the social media team.

• Reduced cost per new user sign-up by 69.23% through social ads (our sole KPI was on sign-ups, not even deposits.)

• Broke monthly new user sign-up records by experimenting with advertising new gambling events, even after the introduction of new regulations.

• Worked with the Head of Content to set up KPIs for various content pillars.

• Provided guidance on social listening and community management.

• Brand management and legal compliance.

• Conducted online, influencer and Competitor research.

• Oversaw budget allocations and optimised spending.

Social Media Strategist

Gather insights & feedback at scale: ponder.land | Product & Growth Marketing

Documenting our journey building products that we’ll always proudly be our first customers. Building them through compounding knowledge and network.

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Product Marketing was always an afterthought in many of my previous roles. Ads were expected to spearhead business growth.

Frustrated by the lack of focus on business fundamentals, I transitioned from PPC to Growth, then to Product Marketing to take on these aspects.

I'm now a huge advocate for marketers to gain experience across all business aspects through their own side hustles. To go beyond being a "T-Shaped Marketer".

This way we can be the bridge between teams, and guide everyone to contribute to business growth as a collective movement.

--

Some of the brands I've worked at/on:
Youfoodz, Ladbrokes, Tammy Fit, BCF, The University of Queensland, Flight Centre Travel Group, and Michael Hill.

--

Links:
How I proposed to my gf via a Facebook ad in 2016: http://bit.ly/FBAdsProposal

Substack - Personal Highscore, A Founder's Journey: https://josiahlau.substack.com/

Bringing Asian Aussie Founders together: https://bit.ly/AsianAussieFoundersLI
(Not updating it currently)

Past & current projects: https://linktr.ee/josiahlau

taplio

The Battle

Kathleen Casford

Josiah L.

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