What Easie did in 2022
As Easie's fifth year of business closes, our single-source consulting model continues to see increased adoption and is constantly evolving. As a business-to-business (B2B) service providing support with any project at any time, Easie has shown proven results for growing firms that need leadership, multidisciplinary expertise and implementation on many different types of projects.
The majority of projects sent to Easie historically have been B2B, a trend which continued throughout 2022; although we still occasionally saw business-to-consumer (B2C) projects requested. The progression into a B2B-specific service formed over time based on our demand-driven strategy and feedback from our clients.
This trend towards B2B projects can be seen when looking at the first version of the Easie website in 2018 compared to 2022:
2018 Easie website
2022 Easie website
Previously, the year 2021 continued implementation of our strategy, technology suite, growth and long-term objectives. As a bootstrapped company, we are grateful for our early adopters that understood the true potential of Easie as a single-source business-to-business consulting model and grew with us through the years as we continued to scale and expand our capabilities.
Since then and throughout the year 2022, Easie has continued to establish itself as a go-to resource for many different types and sizes of businesses.
We are incredibly proud of the Easie community and wanted to thank everyone who has supported us during our first five years of business. The value of a consulting firm for all business needs continues to be validated by our new and recurring clients and the complex projects their teams involve Easie in.
This article summarizes five major trends we observed in 2022, notable developments and our high-level plans going into 2023.
Trend 1:
Growth in technology & engineering projects
We saw a notable shift towards technology, automation and software engineering projects that required larger technical teams, research, expert judgement and more robust project management. Engineering was our fastest growing program area in 2022 with long-duration projects that required formal, defined scopes.
Additionally, there was increased demand for Easie to act as engineering leadership or interim CTO for rapidly growing firms – or companies seeking due diligence on a potential technology investment. Easie helped firms make critical technology decisions, attended onsite recurring client board meetings, presented milestone achievements on product roadmap developments, represented clients at technology conferences and worked closely with executive-level stakeholders as part of our project work in 2022.
Clients also continue to request improvements to their business operations through automation, analytics, accessible user interfaces and novel combinations of technology configurations. There is also a growing interest in serverless frameworks such as AWS Aurora, AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, FireBase or DynamoDB. Several projects in healthtech and fintech were requested in 2022 and we continue to see growing interest in these fields from our clients. We also saw more demand in artificial intelligence including computer vision, text extraction and natural language processing.
Engineering, business development, marketing, operational excellence and backend/IT were some of the most frequently requested types of projects in 2022.
Trend 2:
Results from Easie research & development group
When we launched Easie labs in 2020, our goal was to help startups and early-stage business ventures achieve functionality and operational excellence faster and at lower cost using novel methods and emerging technologies. We then launched Easie’s formal R&D group in 2021 with James Lee being promoted to Head of Research & Development to lead this effort.
We found that internal research efforts to develop solutions to meet scaling requirements and achieve greater operational excellence led to breakthroughs and ultimately new products and services for our clients. Further, Easie’s research services have been a consistently demanded program area throughout the existence of Easie.
We are happy to report significant progress in a variety of initiatives from the Easie research and development team. Here are some examples of notable research work the Easie lab conducted in 2022:
Easie Document AI. Easie created software for automatically reviewing invoices that offers up to 95% time savings to focus on other areas of business. Easie was featured in the San Diego Business Journal for the creation of this software:
Automated reporting. With clients facing requirements in reporting, communications, data analysis and compliance, Easie developed novel architecture and custom automation for numerous business applications.
Event-based architecture. Seeing a clear emerging trend in software engineering, Easie created technology systems using events rather than polling or other triggers. Decoupled systems using this architecture have helped Easie deploy more scalable features faster for technology projects.
Rapid interface development. The ability to iterate rapidly on software ideas through the use of functional interfaces and minimum viable products was developed further in 2022. Easie is able to produce functional full stack software rapidly for both web and mobile as part of research of new product offerings for clients.
Artificial intelligence. Clear demand exists for artificial intelligence and Easie has been working for years in different fields of AI such as natural language processing, text extraction and computer vision. We will continue integrating and fine-tuning new frameworks into our software suite to provide unique and compelling business applications.
Deepfake technology. As short-form video content reigns supreme there’s a need to personalize this content in a scalable way. Easie is working on technology that can create visual and audio clones of a subject and pair it with a CRM for field-based custom scripts. The following audio clip is an example of a deepfake voice we trained during this research:
Public relations (PR) automation. Almost every client Easie works with has requested PR and outreach support in some capacity. Easie continues to develop tools for automated outreach using proprietary systems that maximize delivery without triggering spam filters. These systems have helped clients with high-impact PR placements with millions of views in publications like the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and The LA Business Journal.
Cloud computing. With clients on Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud, cloud computing continues to be a major area of core competency for Easie. We actively monitor the latest developments in services, frameworks, security and new systems to support clients in using the best available technology in their development endeavors.
Easie journalistic arm. We launched our internal blog with Rock W. Vitale as the sole author in 2018 to share helpful business philosophy, current events and research. The editorial team has since grown and now produces articles on a recurring basis for multiple major news publications in the United States. The Easie journalistic arm also continues to publish high quality, diversified editorial content on the Easie blog on a regular basis. Here is a screenshot from an article Easie wrote on the current state of lithium exploration and production in the United States:
Trend 3:
Most clients request multidisciplinary projects
The majority of Easie’s clients are rapidly growing businesses, investment groups with portfolio assets and other high-growth entities. Many of our clients had previously hired multiple firms or large internal teams to get projects done — when presented with the idea of a single-source consulting model, clients saw the immediate benefit of a firm that can help with any department. Over time almost 100% of major Easie clients request multidisciplinary projects rather than projects in a single specialization.
Because Easie conducts work as a single, centralized team, we can learn about our clients and adapt to their specific needs. As a result, we are able to support clients on a recurring basis due to deep familiarity with their teams and systems across their organization. In several instances, Easie acts as a system administrator or similar role for clients.
New case studies added to the Easie website
Easie’s homepage has a responsive word cloud that visually shows project types demanded by clients over the past five years. Clicking on a tag in the word cloud leads to a collection of micro-case studies for that specific tag (e.g. engineering).
This interface allows site visitors to intuitively filter and explore over 600 micro-case studies in a matrix architecture using clickable labels representing each program area. Since we launched this feature in 2020, the following screenshots can be used to visualize the difference in skills demanded in 2022 compared to 2021 using the word cloud:
2021
Fastest growing program areas in 2021:
Microservices
Operational excellence
Engineering
Marketing
Field services
Research
2022
Fastest growing program areas in 2022:
Engineering
Business development
Marketing
Operational excellence
Backend-IT
Healthtech
Trend 4:
Launch of Easie partnership program
After working successfully with multiple investment groups, Easie launched a partnership program offering services to investment groups, private equity and technology firms looking for implementation partners.
We realized that Easie is the ultimate multidisciplinary hedge against risk for providing fully planned, staffed and scoped projects for all areas of an investment portfolio. Our highly diversified core team manages projects to ensure consistency in communication and quality across deliverables.
It’s no secret that having a large and diversified portfolio is key for hedging against investment risk. The downside of this, however, is not having the time nor ability to give companies in a portfolio the unique attention they need to tackle challenging problems required to successfully grow. Growing businesses require both specialized professionals and executive-level experience in key areas like project management, marketing, sales, technology and more.
From rapid growth to crisis intervention, the Easie team is rapidly deployable across an investment portfolio. Our business model as a consulting firm for ALL business needs is best adapted when we can work alongside companies as they scale and evolve in their needs. Easie can be a strategic partner to help grow a client’s portfolio of companies, from creating customized tech products and AI-based solutions, to managing complex projects and seeing them through to completion.
The Easie team often meets in person with clients directly in the field to support quality execution of work:
Additionally, Easie partnered with a number of technology companies in 2022 to provide implementation services for growing software companies based on client-specific requests for these services:
Avalara is software for automated tax compliance with a suite of cloud-based solutions designed to improve accuracy and efficiency by automating tax compliance. Easie provides services to help clients implement Avalara as part of their larger technology stack to support financial compliance:
FullStory is a customer experience data app that captures customer experience data in one powerful and easy-to-use platform that is integrated into a client’s application. Easie provides services to help clients implement FullStory as part of their web or mobile application as well as fine-tuning configuration:
We will continue to explore new partnership opportunities according to client demand and research and development initiatives within Easie moving into 2023.
Trend 5:
Continued growth into diverse program areas
When we receive requests for new projects or see new opportunities that we could offer based on our existing skillset, we conduct feasibility testing to determine if it makes sense to formally launch a new program area. Based on research and development, here are some notable program areas launched in 2022:
Procurement logistics: Easie provides project managed solutions to help facilitate complex procurement for any business operation. Here is an article we released on this product launch.
3D-scanning and as-built construction document creation: Easie now offers 3D-scanning to support creation of as-builts documentation and a navigable 3D model of existing buildings and structures. We continue to explore this as an area to offer beyond construction.
3D-modeling and interior design for luxury properties: Easie has worked in real estate for many years and has seen recent demand for modeling, procurement research and interior design support for luxury residential real estate.
States where Easie has done interior design, procurement & 3D modeling
We will continue to develop new program areas based on feasibility research and demand-driven feedback from our clients moving into 2023.
To celebrate our fifth year of business, we hosted our first Easie summit and rising star award ceremony in September 2022 in Burlington, Vermont for the Easie core team:
Figure 1.3 - Easie summit attendees in Burlington, Vermont
Figure 1.4 - Easie rising star award recipients Dominique Sobieski and Vincent Paradis
Featured projects of 2022
These projects represent the broad, specialized skills and creativity of the Easie team:
Plans for 2023
Building on the progress from 2022, here are a few programs we are planning to expand in the upcoming year:
Conduct research using emerging technology and continue experimental development. The Easie R&D group will continue to work on targeted development initiatives in the Easie lab.
Expand partnership program with new and existing clients. Continue and execute new master services agreements, unique cross-business activity opportunities and other partnership programs.
Further work in artificial intelligence, interface development and breakthrough technology. The Easie lab will continue to experiment with a range of AI frameworks and breakthrough technology to generate unique product offerings for business.
Exploration of audio and video augmentation and cloning to create deepfake content. The Easie team is continuing to explore the potential of deepfake technology to create marketing campaigns and other digital content that’s hyper-personalized and scalable.
Grow the Easie network with impactful recruiting. The continued growth of the Easie network through recruiting with its unique perks and mutualistic benefits is a critical element of our business model. We continue to advance our organization using demand-driven recruiting.
Easie executive team
Rock W. Vitale, CEO
Rock founded Easie in early 2018 and brings significant experience to the business. He is responsible for overseeing new business development, creative direction, research, operational excellence, client relations and journalistic efforts.
His career has encompassed multiple industries including energy, lithium batteries, biotechnology, analytics, research, design, machine learning, engineering, field services and international supply chain management.
Rock is also the Vice Chair on the board of directors for a literary and performing arts non-profit in San Diego, California.
Rebecca Gray, Head of Operations
Rebecca joined Easie in 2020 and quickly expanded into her multidisciplinary work in project management, operational excellence execution, business strategy, specialized network management and internal growth. She comes from a strong background in hospitality and project management with deep experience in business operations and managing dozens of complex projects simultaneously across interconnected program areas.
Through Easie, Rebecca has been able use her variety of subject matter talents that she has developed over many careers into her current role as Head of Operations.
Her educational background is centered in the sciences and environmental/wildlife biology with graduate studies in statistical analysis and environmental economics.
James Lee
Head of Research & Development
James joined Easie in 2020 to apply his knowledge and experience in project management and business development. He is a subject matter expert in technical project management, complex research and niche tax compliance.
His accomplishments include multidisciplinary research and development of program areas in design, business and software development, fintech, competitive intelligence and other expanding areas. James also frequently contributes to drafting, review and editorial for multidisciplinary creative projects within Easie.
His previous experience includes financial compliance consulting for Fortune 100 to Fortune 500 companies. He led and managed projects pertaining to analyzing and monitoring large sets of data, developing process efficiencies and automation, researching gray area topics and compliance with mandated regulations and requirements.
James’ educational background is centered around business administration and accounting. He is a certified project management professional (PMP) and a certified member of the Institute for Professionals in Taxation (CMI).
Jack Marchese, Ops Executive
Jack was an original member of the Easie team from their 2018 launch. Jack brings executive-level business and marketing experience to the team and helps guide strategic and product vision.
Throughout his career, Jack has been a business consultant for high-growth brands in consumer-packaged goods, technology and other sectors. Some areas of focus for Jack include marketing, analytics, new product development and leadership.
Conclusions
Once again, thank you to the Easie community for the support these past five years. Easie has demonstrated that there is a better way of working and this is the future of work. We look forward to addressing your interesting projects in 2023 and beyond.
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