MODCo Creative & Sara Rotman : Hustle 22 Year Old Up & Coming Entrepreneur New York NY

I’d like to start off this review by saying that I have never posted a review about anything in my life and it generally is incredibly difficult to upset me in a business setting as I have a “life goes on” attitude; but a very serious injustice occurred here between Sara Rotman (MODCo.) and myself -and I need the world to know about it. We hired MODCo to work on our product in early February 2016. I am writing this to save someone a lot of time, frustration, hardship, and oh yea MONEY! The following is a truthful, detailed, description of events

My company V a n t e Brands makes various consumer goods that are sold in major retailers nationwide (Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc) as well as in over 25 countries worldwide. We are a small sized business with under 10 employees in the US and fast growing. We were and as of this writing are working on a woman's beauty brand. We normally have our “go to” designers that we work with but because we have really high expectations for this brand we decided to hire someone who had experience in women's products. Also - I knew NOTHING of what women wanted, what their interests in beauty were, and it was very important to me to deal with a company that could offer such insights. Much searching and crawling on Google we find Sara Rotman and her company MODCo (My Own d**n Company). Looking through the website you come to realize that this is the company that created the original Tori Burch logo. They have some big work here and there but mostly small unknown brands, but you are hooked on the Tori Burch thing, and at which point you are baited.

You are baited because this company is riding the success of Tori Burch so heavily (believe me they’ll mention it often) that you begin to believe that if the company created Tori Burch that means that LOGICALLY they have a ton of experience in women’s products. It means you’re going to get a ton of insights. You’re going to be overwhelmed with their massive female experience in product design. You are sold on Sara Rotman “Boss Lady” and “Chief Creative Officer” that she will be involved in all aspects of your branding. In fact MODCo places such a huge emphasis on Sara and presents themselves to be a branding agency that differs from the rest because the CEO herself is involved in EVERYTHING. In fact they make it such an important point that she is involved, that she HAS to be at the meetings, she HAS to be part of the creative process.

So on the first day of meeting you will meet with about 6 people. MODCo is going to put on a show for you. You’re going to meet with all sorts of creatives, account managers, “experts”. You want to meet with Sara too but she’s got a call and she sends a note that she can’t make it. But finally after literally having to say that you will leave if she doesn’t come, she comes.. But just for 5 minutes to shake your hand, nod smile, and then she has to leave to a meeting again. The room is filled with smiles and enthusiasm as you tell these people what you need done. Everyone is taking a lot of notes. You look around and think wow, these guys are the real deal. Look how many people I have involved in my project.

We agreed to $50,000 with $30,000 due upfront, and $10,000 each month after. This covered 4 complete packages, a logo icon, word mark, brand story, design of a website. They initially wanted $75,000 for this job, but we agreed to $50,000 and when you are thinking of a company with a ton of experience, all of these great people, and wow even the owner herself who has all of these great credentials is going to be involved at every stage??? That’s incredible. It sounds like a hell of deal!!! We have never paid this much for branding or artwork but because of how we were sold on all of these amazing people as part of our project, and even Sara the one whose reputation this company rides on, it sounded like a worthwhile risk.

But then reality hits.

So you meet with them again and there is no Sara present at the meetings, and you are just meeting with 3 people. Creatives? Yes, but just 1 of them. You are essentially getting ONE ultra high priced graphic designer, and TWO account managers. The account manager has a manager. Yes I am serious. So there is no team. It is you plus a graphic designer, with two girls just overseeing everything, taking notes, letting you know when you’ll get the next update (which by the way will be several weeks for even the smallest change)

I want to add in a note that the girls who worked on my project were very nice and they had a genuine desire to help but Sara’s greed (which I will discuss further) destroyed the creative process. Also it is important to note that as much as I appreciated these girls - when you’re trying to get great work done, NICE doesn’t cut it.

There was a meeting several weeks later where they would show me the first round of logos and wordmarks. I was shown about 80 different ones. This is a meeting I was told SARA HAD to be at because it was SO IMPORTANT to the process. Sure enough - Sara was not there. I looked through 80 logos as my 2 account managers and graphic designer eyed me and asked me to separate them into a like/dislike pile. Out of 80 I KIND OF liked 1 of them.

Now trust me I understand, creative taste is subjective. But IN MY OPINION, the designs looked GENERIC, mundane, plain, and completely off direction of what our brand was about. We had discussed an entire branding strategy but some of these designs were so far off point it made me think if they even knew what we were working on or they were just regurgitating work from other clients to us. When I chose a logo and word mark that I “KINDOF LIKED” I wanted to make it perfect. We kept trying variations, and after about 2 rounds of revisions I was told that I would be charged for more revisions.

When I had initially met with MODCo, Anthony Reddish the guy who sold me, told me that they would work with us until we had something we liked, at any means necessary. After forwarding a series of emails they agreed to continue working on the design free of charge. This is the first time I experienced the greed that is MODCo. It would be weeks in between MINOR REVISIONS (make this font a bit smaller, italicize that, move that over etc). I understand that you can be busy so I offered to do a 30 minute screenshare session or to come into their offices and work with their designer to just get it done. Think about it logically. It takes them over 1 week to send back a small revision. Instead of weeks of back and forth, I can simply screenshare as I do with all my designers and get it done on the spot. Why waste so much time? They gave excuse after excuse as to how Sara Rotman needs to be present for all creative meetings…

WHAT???

She was never in a meeting with us before, but now all of a sudden she has to be present??? This got me thinking, why weren’t they letting me meet with my graphic designer to get it done?? 30 minutes over a screenshare or in person, and this would’ve been done.. No need to waste weeks in between… So then I started thinking - IS MY “GRAPHIC DESIGNER” EVEN THE ONE DOING MY WORK? Or are they outsourcing my job???? I have no proof of this and of course this is just a thought that crossed my head, but why else would they make such a big deal about not wanting to complete the work in real time?? It does make sense though, large business interested in just pumping out work. Why do they have to make me wait a WEEK for tiny tiny little changes that we could have completed in 30 minutes. Something felt immediately off. 

At this point I had had enough. Working with MODCo was extremely detrimental to the creative process. I just wanted to get our work done. We started working with MODCo on February 8th 2016, and I ended our relationship with them on April 16th 2016. ALMOST 3 MONTH of working with this big time high profile company and after ALMOST 3 MONTHS all I had was an UNFINISHED LOGO AND WORDMARK… Unfinished. I am not kidding!!! Do you have 3 months to waste on that?

The process was hostile, I was constantly met with rebuttals, each revision took weeks, and we were on a deadline to launch our product, WHICH WE MISSED- AND to top it all off, we thought the work was not worth ANYWHERE CLOSE to that amount. I was expecting insights into the women's market, and to tap into Sara's immense knowledge in brands, but that never happened. The only time Sara and I spoke was when i told her we were through with the relationship.  There was minimal creative exchange and I felt like they just wanted to take our money, pump us out, and move onto the next client. We were sold into one thing of what MODCo was about, their big time CEO with all of her experience, and then were struck with cold hard reality and just sent into the tube.

We were supposed to receive a logo/wordmark, brand story type up, color palletes, packaging for 4 products, design for our product itself, and a social media/home page design for $50,000. I also want to add that MODCo kept insisting that they had done us some sort of favor by doing this job for that price. If it was not in the business interest of MODCo to work with us for $50,000 - they could have declined us. We did not beg them to work with us- if they said no we would’ve found someone else. So please spare me the “favor”.

Out of the $50,000 we paid $40,000. Here is where the story gets interesting.

MODCo only delivered an unfinished logo and wordmark to us YET they want to keep the full amount, and now have their lawyer threatening to sue us for the remainder $10,000 balance. I repeat, they only delivered an unfinished logo and word mark and refuse to refund us our money FOR WORK NOT COMPLETED.

Now - I think I am very reasonable. I am offering to pay them $15,000 for the initial work that they began and never finished (we also had a change in direction very early on which they claim to have done work on, even though we’ve never seen that work, this is included in that 15k as well, like I said we are reasonable). I understand creative taste is subjective, but this extends beyond that because it turned into a total inability to work together. MODCo is holding money for WORK THEY DID NOT EVEN BEGIN OR COMPLETE AND ARE EXPECTING TO BE PAID IN FULL FOR A HALF COMPLETED LOGO WHICH = 10% OF THE  ROJECT.

Personally - I understand the importance of keeping people happy. Especially in a business like MODCo is in that is so heavily reliant on word of mouth and recommendations. A person and company’s character is determined not when the relationship is great but when a relationship ends. Sara Rotman has shown her true colors, as they say “how it begins, is how it ends”.

I am a 22 year old entrepreneur. This is a lot of money for us. I decided to take a risk to work with a large Madison Ave branding agency. I wanted their help, experience, and insights to build a new brand of ours. Everything that sold me on this company, was not there when I arrived. I was deceived, fooled, embarrassed, and left with nothing to show for it.

Now I’ve had to hire a lawyer to get back my measley $25,000. If you are reading this Sara, I hope you learn how important it is to take care of your customers. You are twice my age, and I know for a fact that if at over 40 years old, I am screwing 22 year olds out of $25,000 that I will seriously need to reevaluate my life.

This has become about more than money. This is an injustice that the world needs to know. I understand if all of the work was completed, and we weren’t happy with it - we wouldn’t ask for a refund because it’s our fault for taking it that far, and I understand creative taste is subjective. However in this case, we stopped the project early on while only 10% of it was completed, and the fact that Sara thinks she is still entitled to my money blows my mind. To anybody reading this - does that make sense?

This is a 100% accurate description of what happened. This matter is pending litigation and I will be happy to post an update once this matter comes to a close.

Long story short - 3 months and an incomplete logo/wordmark is a no go for us. We move fast and need work to get done. We found a company that for $25,000 is making not 1 but THREE brands for us.. Complete with logos, point of purchase displays, over 9 packagings, the entire works. They move fast, and their work is FAR MORE SUPERIOR.

At the end of the day my goal is not to deter you from doing business with MODCo but to simply read my real story, and decide for yourself if this is a company you want to spend time, money, and energy with. Don’t be fooled by the glitz and glamour - their only interest is THEMSELVES as clearly shown by ZERO EFFORT in helping an upset customer.

MODCo’s lawyers sent us a “settlement” email which said pay us the 10k you owe us and we’ll let you keep the work we’ve done for you. Oh really? I get to keep the unfinished, unusable, trash that you sent over to me? Are you F&$@#$ing kidding me???????? And I have to pay you for it???

I love to support great businesses and if you are looking for someone for any type of branding, packaging, design, please feel free to contact me directly at a l e x @ v a n t e brands.com and I will put you in touch with the new company we are working with now that is freaking AMAZING, well priced, quality work, INSIGHTS, and where the CEO actually cares and wants your brands to succeed.

If it prevents you from having the awful experience I had with MODCo, then there is some justice in this world no matter how small. Please share my experience with anyone doing business with MODCo. We cannot let greedy companies like this continue to stomp over growing small businesses.