Fat Cap Design is the audience research and brand strategy practice you call right before you do something expensive. Megan Eckman and Jeffrey Opp work with organizations whose marketing feels hard and isn't delivering the returns they'd hoped for — finding the audience truth that makes every subsequent investment more effective.
Most consultants will nod along to your brief, validate your existing assumptions, and invoice you handsomely for the privilege.
We are not those consultants.
We know what it's like to do everything "right" and still watch your strategy quietly fail in real time. We built a product business from scratch — starting as Studio MME, an embroidery kit business that spent years doing all the right things and getting mediocre results for the trouble.
Then we stopped building for the customer we'd invented in our heads and got obsessive (almost uncomfortably so) about understanding who was actually showing up. What they believed. What they needed. What the gap was between our story and theirs.
We rebranded as PopLush Embroidery — a bold, rebellious embroidery kit business built around what our audience actually wanted.
Revenue jumped 150%. A subscription took off. Retention doubled. Our accountant started asking questions.
That obsession with understanding and building specifically for our core fans became our methodology. And that methodology is Fat Cap.
We're not consultants who learned from case studies and conference panels. We've sweated profit and loss statements. We've ugly-cried over failed launches. We've made the expensive mistake of building the wrong thing for the wrong reason — and then figured out how to fix it.
While everyone else is telling you to scale, we're asking whether what you're scaling is actually working. Because more of the wrong thing is just a faster way to burn your budget. We'd rather find the right thing first. Then build something worth amplifying.
When your strategy is built around what your audience actually believes (not what you assume they believe) something shifts. Your message lands. Your campaigns convert. Your core fans stop comparison shopping because nothing else feels like it was made specifically for them.
Megan sees the opportunity hiding inside the problem. She's a pattern-recognition machine with an artist's eye, a strategist's brain, and an unhealthy obsession with designing killer customer experiences.
Superpower: ADHD-fueled pattern recognition that spots strategic disconnects from three miles away
Credentials that matter: Built and scaled a product business across retail, wholesale, and subscription revenue streams. Survived a global pandemic with international supply chains intact and customers still happy. Knows what it actually takes to build an audience that won't shut up about you.
Actual degrees: BAs in Art and Creative Writing, UX/UI certificates
Other businesses: Outside of Fat Cap, Megan is the creator of PDX Spellbound — a monthly cozy fantasy rom-com series for readers who love romance but crave a world full of magic. Two very different businesses. Same obsession with building worlds people want to live in.
Businesses I've worked with:
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Jeffrey is a futures thinker who turns complex, high-stakes strategy into things people can understand and act on. He led design strategy for a $500M fundraising initiative and created social campaigns that raised $2M in 24 hours. He protects organizations from the very expensive mistake of building the right thing for the wrong reason.
Superpower: Dyslexic thinking that finds the solution nobody else could see because they were all looking in the same direction
Credentials that matter: Strategic design at the intersection of brand, systems, and human behavior. Makes the complicated simple. Makes the simple irresistible. Has enough certificates to wallpaper a small room and the receipts to back all of it up.
Actual degrees: MFA in conceptual art, Futures Thinking Specialization, product design certification and many more
Graffiti artists have two kinds of spray caps: fine tips for detail work, and fat caps for making bold, sweeping strokes that cover an entire wall.
Most consultants are fine-tip people. Careful. Precise. Coloring inside the lines someone else drew.
We're fat cap people.
We make big, bold moves. We cover the whole wall. We ask the questions that change the direction of everything — not just the campaign, not just the messaging, but the entire way your organization understands itself and its audience.
Because subtle is forgettable. And you didn't get into this to be forgettable.
Let's have the conversation your last three strategy meetings were afraid to have.
No pitch. No pressure. Just straight talk about what's going on — and whether we're the right people to fix it.