Based in Santa Clarita, California, the 5-strong team at Blackfish grew from humble beginnings after being founded in 2015 by Matthew Dart. After leaving the promotional products industry for two years to pursue running another company, Matthew was asked by a friend and former client to consult on a corporate gifting project which reignited his passion for promotional products, and began what is now Blackfish Inc. Initially focussing on reconnecting with previous clients and cold calling, Matthew and his team now rely on their marketing plan and referrals to fuel their pipeline.

His favorite part of the platform? “Where to begin...commonsku has exponentially increased our productivity, but my favorite aspect of the platform is the community. The industry connections I’ve made through commonsku are invaluable,” Matthew shared.

When asked to describe the workflow at Blackfish before commonsku, Matthew shared, “I have a little PTSD regarding our time before commonsku. We would create a project folder in Dropbox, make a PowerPoint presentation, get the client’s feedback via email, write up an estimate in excel, once approved we would create a sales order in excel and send it via Docusign for approval. Once approved we would write up a PO in excel to begin production. Project sales and production was tracked via hubspot. It was a lot.”

Now utilizing commonsku, the Blackfish workflow is vastly more productive, presentations take minutes vs hours, and the team's projects are streamlined. Matthew shared, “I’ll say that our workflow was anything but streamlined prior to commonsku. The commonsku platform has streamlined our workflows and has enabled our team to be more creative in how we approach our work.Two words. Game. Changer.”

Matthew’s most loved business book at the moment? The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman and Paul White.

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