David is an innovative leader who founded the award winning digital agency Sparxoo, and is the founder and CEO of CROOW. David has over 20 years of digital leadership experience, and has led strategic digital and innovation projects for major brands throughout his career.

CROOW is an innovative platform that streamlines creative collaboration for faster, better, smarter projects. CROOW’s software platform has been incubated through agencies, marketing organizations, and in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Beyond the platform’s best inbreed project management features, CROOW really shines with advanced collaboration and business intelligence designed for the creative class. It helps leaders predict upcoming work, optimize resources, and make smart decisions faster.

CROOW is a SaaS company with a platform built for project management, business intelligence, and creative collaboration.

We are incredibly grateful to be named startup IT company of the year. Every startup comes with its own challenges and hurdles to get to market and breakthrough. This is recognition of all the sweat and hard work that has gone into the first two years at CROOW. Awards like this re-energize our passion so we can continue to aggressively pursue innovation and growth. Our success as a startup is only made possible by so many contributions from our developers, designers, growth and marketing teams, and we are all honored.

Any startup organization is trying to win over early adopters who may be customers of larger competitors. Winning an international award helps build trust and credibility so that these prospective customers can feel confident in choosing CROOW as a long term solution.

Market fit is a key milestone, and along the journey to get to market fit there is an enormous amount of learning that is required. There needs to be a balance of learning and pivoting the development quickly and economically. In our first go to market we learned that there are market expectations beyond what our product was able to perform at that time, so we had to go back and build significant pieces of technology to return to market.

It begins with being highly market driven and recognizing what the customer wants, what the available solutions are, and what will create the most value. Agile innovation brings us to quickly reach a prototype, with alpha, beta, and additional releases. Over the course of ideation we lightly document many ideas, but are selective about which ideas to move forward with.

Given that CROOW is a high-upside high-risk start-up, we have set the goal to become a unicorn. Our goal is to innovate the category and make a difference for eventually millions of users.

1. Connection. We believe understanding the customer is key for a successful project. Therefore, our work begins with a personal acquaintance to build a trustworthy relationship with our customers.

2. Idea and strategy. We prepare a selection of relevant images of decoration, furniture and lighting for inspiration, as well as discuss possible options for household appliances and electronics.

3. Planning and visualisation. Based on the approved technical assignment, we proceed to the creation of a concept and its visualization on paper and in 3D. Here we develop an optimal layout plan, come up with the overall mood of the interior and create moodboards for each room, as well as model a realistic 3D visualisation of the future interior.

4. Technical drawings. In parallel with the 3D modeling, we work on a complete package of drawings and other technical documentation required to bring the design concept to life just as on the renders.

5. Furnishing and procurement. As the preliminary construction works commence on the site, we choose reliable suppliers and contractors within the budget and start to fill in a specification of finishing materials, equipment, furniture and decor items with estimates.

Implementation and design supervision. We supervise all construction and installation works at the site, helping our clients find most suitable alternative solutions, when necessary.

Our team was born out of a digital agency that had significant experience and learnings on project management systems. Based on that inside industry knowledge, we were able to identify and solve problems much more quickly.

The US is known for its technology start-ups and this puts a premium on technology and innovation. Historically, silicon valley has been the central location for innovation, but we are proud to be an innovation leader based in Tampa, Florida demonstrating that great technology can come from the sunshine state.

We launched CROOW to the public in April 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. The timing was great in theory with everyone working remotely, but our solution was not robust enough given that the pandemic made more tried and true technologies more favorable. We were able to use all available resources and bandwidth over the past year to really advance CROOW and make it more robust.

More people are turning to technology to help with work management, especially with many companies still being remote. There is an increased desire for actionable data and business intelligence and a move to consolidate tech platforms, which is exciting for our team at CROOW.

Level Up is a book designed to help put businesses on the path to success. It is a collection of tips and lessons that have been provided by some of the most recognized organizations in the world. The hope is that by combining the lessons into a simple framework, others can avoid potential pitfalls and create an easier path to success.

Remote and remote-hybrid work is here to stay, which will continue to shift the industry. We also foresee increased collaboration with freelancers and the gig economy paired with increased price pressure except for the most elite skilled in the business world. There will be a continued value on creativity and storytelling to stand out as the tech and digital transformation continue.

My dad is my biggest inspiration. He is a successful business person with a passion for growth and innovation, and has always valued creativity. He is also highly ethical in everything he does, which I find incredibly admirable.

We have found that perseverance and positive energy are very important in achieving success, and a bit of good luck never hurts. Value the relationships you have with your team and your clients, because they will get you far.

Doug Pace, Kyle Eddins, and Robyn Spoto