PROCESSKIT SUCCESS STORIES

How ProcessKit Helped the Founder of “Crated with Love” Get Ahead on His Long-Term Goals

A case study in streamlining repeatable product launches

By The ProcessKit Team

Is it possible to have a “date night” right from your living room couch? 

Tyler Turk sure thinks so. That’s why he and his wife created Crated with Love, a subscription service that delivers themed “date nights in a box” to your doorstep. Every box comes with its own unique theme and a series of fun activities for you and your significant other, making it easy to reconnect and laugh together at home (which, let’s face it, is more important than ever!)

In the following case study, we’ll take a look at how Tyler Turk of Crated with Love used ProcessKit to offload the burden of task management – and instead get to focus on getting ahead and reaching big-picture goals for his uniquely awesome product. 

“ProcessKit illustrates exactly what was in my brain,” explains Turk. “It’s easy to set up and easy to use. ProcessKit is exactly what we were looking for.”

In 2020, Turk has seen plenty of new growth with Crated with Love. No surprise there…pandemic-induced ”stay at home” culture has made it challenging to venture into public for a date. 

Looking ahead, Turk has big plans and goals to optimize his marketing strategy, get ahead on production and planning, and ultimately, create a better, more profitable product. But as any founder knows, reaching your bigger goals can be a challenge when you’re caught up in managing your own processes and making sure day-to-day tasks are being performed correctly by your team. 

The Challenge: Documenting, Handing Off & Improving Replicable Processes

Creating a new “date night in a box” every month requires quite a bit of creativity. Themes like “You + Me in Yosemite” and “Into Hungry Waters” demand plenty of brainstorming, conceptualizing and design to create a fun, unique activity that coaxes joy out of couples. 

That being said, Turk and his team rely on repeatable processes to make sure everything gets done: From writing the narrative to illustrating graphics to working with manufacturers, there’s a lot that goes into creating a box….and Turk was more or less the only team member who fully understood and managed those steps. 

“All my processes were in my head. It just became muscle memory of how to do everything,” explains Turk. 

Unsure of how to effectively document his processes in order to hand them off–and unable to find a tool that worked for him–Turk became the sole burden-bearer of day-to-day workflow management. 

“I couldn’t figure out how to replicate the processes in my brain and hand those over to someone else,” says Turk. “We tried Google docs, but I realized that handing someone a document with a ton of information on it is pretty daunting and makes it likely that they’ll make mistakes. We also tried tools like Trello, but it got messy. There wasn’t a clean flow.”

So, Turk kept doing everything himself.

“I just kept the burden on myself–which prevented me from working on the business and focusing on growth.”

And when Turk was drawn away from project processes to work on bigger picture goals, the ball got dropped, workflows were stunted and deadlines were missed. 

“There were a lot of mistakes I had to fix because my focus was being spread out,” explains Turk. 

A second challenge was that without a tool that helped him to effectively document his processes, Turk was unable to identify weaknesses in his own workflows.

“I was looking for a tool that would help me improve, as well as hand off and oversee, processes,” explains Turk. 

Finally, Crated with Love’s growth meant that they began to work on 3-4 projects a month–as opposed to just one, as in the past. Project management was becoming more complex, and more than ever, Turk needed a tool that would help him easily replicate the same processes.
 

“We weren’t creating new themes, but we still needed to update, proof, refresh and improve old projects,” says Turk. “We’re still working with the same amount of people–we just have more to manage.”

Ultimately, Crated with Love needed a tool that would help the whole team succeed: Giving Turk the room and space to pull back and focus on longer-term growth and his team members the ability to self-manage projects. 

The Solution: Automating Clean, Repeatable Processes & Generating Much-Needed Insight 

When Turk discovered ProcessKit, he found a tool that theoretically covered his three basic needs to “hand over, oversee and improve processes” for Crated with Love. That’s because ProcessKit is designed to help businesses automate their repeatable tasks and streamline workflows, ultimately setting them up for predictable growth. 

Here’s how ProcessKit worked in practice for Crated with Love:

Made it easy and convenient to set up processes and automate projects.

By giving Turk the tools he needed to lay out the tasks that had become “muscle memory,” ProcessKit made it easy to set up processes and get started on automated workflows for his team. 

“ProcessKit illustrates exactly what was in my brain,” explains Turk. “It’s easy to set up and easy to use. ProcessKit is exactly what we were looking for.”

As Turk words it, ProcessKit makes it so that projects “take care of themselves.” When the team is ready to design and implement a new theme, they simply click on the correct template and everything is ready to go–task lists, team member assignments, due dates and more. And if team members need to make changes for any reason, ProcessKit gives them the ability to tweak a particular project.

“I’ve been looking for something clean and replicable with as much automation as possible. Nothing worked that way, until I found ProcessKit.”

Provided much-needed insight into project progress.

Juggling multiple box themes at once, Turk needed a tool that would give him insight on project progress without diving into minutiae–and ProcessKit’s boards do just that by quantifying progress in a percentage. 

“What has been really helpful is that I’m able to go into the boards section of ProcessKit, and see where everything is at,” says Turk. “For example, if we have accomplished 80% of the ‘Into Hungry Waters’ theme, I’ll say ‘Let’s knock out the remaining 20% today.’ Or maybe I’ll notice that we’re only at 6% of another theme. In that case, I’ll reach out to the team and identify roadblocks that might be hindering the project.” 

Highlighted areas for improvement. 

Finally, ProcessKit has helped Turk formulate and automate his processes in such a way that he’s now able to identify areas for improvement. 

“I really appreciate that ProcessKit has allowed us to see some of our weaknesses,” says Turk. “As we’ve scaled, we’ve got more responsibilities, sales and data to manage. ProcessKit has opened our eyes to what can be improved.”

The bottom line? ProcessKit provided Turk with the tools and capabilities he was looking for. Now for the real test: The final impact of those features on Crated with Love. 

The Results: Speeding Up Projects, Minimizing Mistakes & Creating Room for Future Growth

At the end of the day, ProcessKit delivered on what Crated with Love founder Tyler Turk needed to formulate and hand over his processes to team members. But it also did so much more: giving him the visual insight he needed to save on time, reduce mistakes and most importantly, help him step back to focus on growth.

First, by using ProcessKit’s easy-to-read dashboard, Turk was able to speed up workflows and prevent mistakes.
 

“Having a dashboard where I can see where everything is at really helps minimize mistakes and speeds up the process,” explains Turk. 

A secondary–but still significant–benefit?

“As a founder, I’ve now got a lot less anxiety knowing everything is getting done,” says Turk.

Next, ProcessKit has now given Turk the space and capacity to think about his longer-term goals for Crated with Love. These include a special marketing campaign aimed at selling individual boxes, and getting ahead of schedule on planning and production. 

“We want to run a special marketing campaign that markets a specific type of box to a specific type of couple–for example, our ‘Yosemite’ themed box to a couple who loves the outdoors,” says Turk. 

“We also want to get 6-12 months ahead of schedule so that in January we’re planning for July or August,” says Turk.“That also allows us to buy stuff early and get discounts–and reduces stress.”

How does ProcessKit help with all of that?

“ProcessKit frees up my time,” explains Turk. “It’s given me an organized, efficient process that leads to a better product that ultimately leads to a lower churn rate and more revenue.”

A Happy Ending For All

Ultimately, ProcessKit has proven to be the perfect match for Crated Love’s need for a clean, easy-to-use system for managing the production of their “date nights in a box.” It has given founder Tyler Turk the ability to be forward thinking and the confidence to hand off his processes to his team members. And it’s allowed him to build a strong foundation for the future–optimizing his product and processes, and looking towards long-term development.
 

“ProcessKit is the beginning of growth for us,” says Turk. “For anyone on the fence, I would say, ‘just do it.’ We’re no longer scrambling or doing things out of fear or anxiety. We’re doing things out of a sense of excitement and a drive to get things done.”

To take a look at how ProcessKit can transform your business and help you position yourself for predictable growth, click here.