1. The Origin Story
Two Things began eight years ago in Portland, Oregon, but four years ago made a deliberate decision to center operations in New York City, where they now occupy a beautiful old building in NoHo. Founded by Paulo Ribiero, the agency was built on a simple but radical premise: be a catalyst for change, then get out of the way.
With 23 people today and a leadership team expanding to five, Two Things has carved out a unique position in the market as specialists in upstream transformation work—the kind of assignments that typically go to management consultants, but executed with the hands-on approach of a creative shop.
2. What They’re Known For
“We are a catalyst for change,” says Paulo. “We help clients get unstuck, and we ride shotgun with them to bring that work into the real world.”
Two Things specializes in solving the problems that keep companies spinning their wheels: launching new products, building new departments, connecting with audiences in fundamentally different ways. They work primarily with consumer brands across industries, with current and recent clients including EA Sports, Converse, Arc’teryx, The North Face, Timberland, and Unity Technologies.
But here’s what makes them different: they don’t want to keep that client forever. Their reputation is built on coming in for a year or two, solving the problem completely, then moving on. As Paulo puts it, “We do not want to hold on to that engagement infinitely, to just continue to get revenue.”
3. Their Core Strengths
Colliding Perspectives
Head of Strategy Bryna Keenaghan describes their first core strength as “the ability to collide perspective.” The agency maintains equal rigor on strategy and design, bringing technologists, different types of designers, and different types of strategists to the table together. Critically, they put clients at that table too. “We want clients that are going to roll up their sleeves and work with us,” Bryna explains, “because we think that’s really the only way that we are going to get to something amazing at the end.”
Building Internal Capability
Justin Baum, Head of Product, identifies their second strength: “We eventually like to make ourselves obsolete. A lot of what we do is not just focused on building products or services or taking things to market, but it’s also building internal capability.” They ensure clients can maintain, continue to innovate, and continue working on whatever Two Things brought into the world.
Acting as Player Coaches
Paulo describes their third strength as the player-coach model. “We get under the hood and figure out what has had that company stuck. Sometimes that’s cultural issues. Sometimes it’s gaps in knowledge, gaps in expertise, gaps in capabilities of the staff.” After diagnosing what’s blocking progress, they create a custom plan and ride shotgun with the client, teaching as they go. This approach extends to their hiring philosophy too—they look for people who can both execute their craft excellently and teach others the special sauce of their process.
4. Why Independence Matters
For Justin, independence means “the business model doesn’t dictate the solution. It allows you to work in a way where you’re unconstrained, where you have the flexibility to work the way you need to work for the project or problem at hand.”
Paulo, who spent two long stints at Wieden+Kennedy and also worked at Red Scout (part of MDC), acknowledges the strengths of networks but explains why independence is essential for their model. “Our ability to bring in senior specialists, not as a made-up team to serve the client, but as that 20% special sauce, and not be required to tap into the skill sets in the rest of the network—if we had to do that, our output would be mediocre.”
The top-heavy, cross-functional structure allows them to bring in specialized talent for each unique engagement. When working with Converse, they need different specialists than when working with Unity Technologies on a consumer 3D app or with EA Sports on their projects. Independence gives them the freedom to cast the perfect team every time.
5. When Brands Call
“When they are tired of business as usual,” says Bryna. “When they cannot find momentum. We are really good at finding the roadblocks, and that’s sometimes as much of the project as building products and services.”
She describes a current client situation that illustrates this perfectly: “It’s not always just new ideas. Sometimes these organizations have been having those ideas. They just cannot get them through the system. When they actually want to create breakthrough, that’s when they want us on their side, because we can really just come in and sort of be that SEAL Team Six and make it happen.”
Paulo adds essential context from his experience working with senior leaders: “I have never met a leader who’s like, ‘just give me good enough.’ They’re usually stymied in some way. They would if they could do better, they would. So what is getting in their way? And there’s a different answer to that at every organization.” This empathy drives their diagnostic approach.
6. What They’ve Learned
Paulo’s key learning is empathy: “They would if they could do better, they would. So what is getting in their way?” This insight shapes how they approach every engagement, looking past surface-level obstacles to understand the real barriers to progress.
Justin has learned about “the importance of vision through execution and connecting what strategy is doing and what early process vision is doing to the people that are actually writing code or doing testing in market.” As Paulo notes with delight, “Justin’s background is as a very technical UX designer—he was just talking about vision. I love that.”
The team has also learned that vision isn’t a deliverable. As Justin explains, it’s about “not building it during the engagement, but ensuring that when it’s time to execute the vision, you’re not disappearing but at the right time you can move on.”
7. Why Talent Chooses Two Things
“So much of what we do, whether it’s in services or if you’re in-house at a big tech company, the whole creative industry has been industrialized, and people are almost forced to fit into these boxes now,” Justin observes. “Coming to Two Things, you’re able to really morph and work to your strengths.”
The agency actively seeks “uncommon combinations”—people who don’t fit perfectly into boxes. Paulo shares examples: a former head of Creative Technology at a Fortune 100 company who wanted to get back to hands-on work instead of managing bureaucracy; a head of design for digital products at a Fortune 50 company with the same desire. “They came here and said, ‘Can I just come in and do my special craft, because I have lost touch with that?'”
But the model also works for people at different career stages. Paulo explains their approach to nurturing talent: “We’re going to do that for our people the same way we do for our clients, but we’re going to make sure there isn’t one way to do this for designers, and another way to do this for technologists, and another one for program managers. We’re meeting that person where they are.”
Bryna adds her personal perspective: “In most agencies, what I found in my career was there’s one path, and it’s just up to management, and you don’t get to do the work anymore, and that was very unfulfilling for me personally. I don’t mind managing. I actually like that, but I want to be in the work. Every everybody’s path is very different, and I think being a small indie agency allows us to nurture everybody’s unique path.”
Paulo is clear about the constraints: “This model doesn’t work in a 500-person agency. I don’t think we can be excellent and be over 75 people. That’s not our goal. We want to do consequential work and then make ourselves obsolete and create a fulfilling home for talent wherever they are.”
8. Weirdos, Misfits, or Underdogs?
“I think this is easy. I think we’re misfits,” says Bryna immediately. “I personally would say I’m a misfit. I worked at some amazing agencies. I worked brand side, and it’s not that I never fit at any of those, but there was always a little piece that was not as fulfilling. When I was at strategy agencies, I wanted more design. When I was at design agencies, I wanted the strategy to be more rigorous. When I was client side, I actually did feel like a fish swimming upstream because you’re a creative person in a non-creative kind of place. In a way, I always did feel like a little bit of a misfit. And we’re all, in some ways, a little bit like that. We’re here because we’re putting all of those pieces that we love together into one place, which is really freaking cool. I thought it was a unicorn. I never thought I would find the place where there would be as rigorous design as there is strategy.”
Justin agrees: “I constantly find myself calling upon early startup, early-stage startup experience in a services context. It’s not something that you can clearly define. It’s not a repeatable structure for a business. It’s really a collection of its people—the people and the way we work that create the benefit of what it is to be a misfit.”
Meet the Team:
- Paulo Ribiero, Founder
- Bryna Keenaghan, Head of Strategy
- Justin Baum, Head of Product
Find Two Things: twothings.co
Agency Shout-Out: Melody Lee, CMO at Mercedes-Benz, for navigating the complexity of their product line, EV transition, tariff dynamics, and more. As Paulo says about the challenge: “We’re so drawn to complexity as a shop. We have to meet her.”
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
