Ocupop Does Good Work with Good People

Michael and Jeff, two snowboarders in Madison, WI, brute-force their way into careers making cool, creative shit on computers for businesses big and small, building a process that allows them to get radical whenever they want.

Michael (and by extension, Ocupop) welcomes his first child, Izzy. Building a company that offers flexibility takes on all new meaning as we endeavor to do great work, but not at the expense of family and fun.

Milwaukee becomes Ocupop’s semi-official home base as the ragtag bunch welcomes a few talented design grads from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts (the bulk of whom are still here 10+ years later).

The next Ocu-baby, Hakan, enters the world. The pair begin to make regular appearances on video calls and serve as Ocupop’s first (and only) design focus-group.

Ocupop’s first-ever SXSW talk extols the power of being an expert and owning it. When you say no and explain why, the work and the relationship shift for the better.

Taking the stage at SXSW once more, Michael discusses one of the biggest professional and personal hurdles of all: imposter syndrome.

After squeezing as many people as we could in our rented studio, we bought an old industrial building to rehab into the HQ of our dreams. We also acquired a big-ass metal M to mount on the wall, because why not?

Turns out running a creative business is hard! Michael shares how he’s evolved as a leader and how empathy, vulnerability and honesty made Ocupop better.

After a year’s worth of rehab, our Milwaukee crew takes up residence in the shiny new studio, high-fiving each other daily.

We transform a Milwaukee institution and launch an all-new parent brand for Radio Milwaukee, the non-commercial radio group. Music, stories, community — and branding!

To help Hannah overcome her fear of frogs we established Frog Content™, a weekly form of exposure therapy celebrating the cool of the croak through memes, vids and more.

Milwaukee is unlike any other. So it was the ultimate honor to work with Visit Milwaukee—the city’s tourism agency—and develop a new brand identity and strategy to help others discover its greatness.