About Us

We partner with early-stage companies and discount our fees so they get access to otherwise unaffordable agency talent. This takes the shape of an advisory role, and turns “clients” into partners. In addition to eliminating  an agency profit margin, we provide a certain number of non-billed hours each month for opportunities that come up but don’t need a Statement of Work to complete.

In joining founders and betting on our combined success, it allows us to focus on how to best and most efficiently solve business problems. It also means we’re motivated to work much faster than traditional agencies. We aren’t stacking billable hours to grow. Since we don’t take profit on billings, budget conversations are now entirely about which and how many customers (and investors) we can reach.

This is Paper Crane Factory.

  • Damon Fletcher

    VENTURE PARTNER

    Damon is a seasoned finance executive and startup founder specializing in data, analytics, and AI. As former CFO of Tableau, he scaled revenue past $1B and helped lead its $15.7B Salesforce acquisition. He later served as CFO of DataRobot and founded Caliper, a cloud cost optimization platform.

  • Dee Dee Jones

    DIRECTOR, CREATIVE OPERATIONS

    Dee Dee has been a part of the marketing and advertising landscape for over 25 years at multiple agencies including DDB, Cole & Weber, Wexley School for Girls and Essence. During that time she tackled various roles in account services, production, project management and operations. As Director of Creative Operations she helps to determine the scope of needs, and works with the team to ensure a successful delivery via a smooth creative workflow.

  • Cal McAllister

    FOUNDER

    Cal founded Seattle’s Wexley School for Girls in 2003. Quickly earning a reputation as one of the country’s leading creative agencies, they developed globally-recognized work for ESPN, Nike, Microsoft, Amazon, and the launch of Seattle’s MLS team, the Sounders. You may recognize Cal from regular appearances on NBC television and NPR, or as a regular contributor to Inc. Magazine. He’s been named one of the 25 most influential people in Seattle.

  • Caroline Edwards

    PRODUCT DESIGN LEAD

    Caroline is a multidisciplinary designer translating brand systems into clear, cohesive, and scalable design solutions. Her background in product and user experience design brings a human centric approach, ensuring intuitive and accessible outcomes. Caroline specializes in bringing evolving brands to life, refining visual identity systems, and designing products that build trust, clarity, and connection.

  • Will Hays

    DIRECTOR, BRAND & DESIGN

    Will is a Brand Creative Director with over 20 years of experience building identities, design systems, and brand platforms that scale. He has shaped brands that are both strategically grounded and creatively unforgettable transforming business goals into clear visual languages/design systems that make it effortless for marketers, designers, and partners to execute consistently across digital, social, and out-of-home channels.

  • “The Paper Crane Factory team has been my creative/brand/design co-founders for three companies now. One lifestyle business, one fintech that became a unicorn, and the third, Tongo, is in-process. As we scale and grow, they're a strategic touchstone for me. They helped me name my companies, they help me design my pitch decks, advise on my marketing/design hires, and come through in a pinch when I need something extra. Not even sure how many 15 minute, “I-have-a-quick-question-for-you” phone calls we’ve had. I introduce them to each founder I can.”

    — Brandon Wright

    Founder and CEO
    Tongo (Exit, KPLT:NASDAQ)

  • "As a busy founder, working with the Paper Crane Factory team has been invaluable. I first engaged them to support our naming and rebrand ahead of our commercial launch—a pivotal moment for our company. I shared my vision, values, and aspirations, and they masterfully translated it all into the brand, Ocean. Their deep understanding of our ethos means they consistently deliver exceptional creative work with minimal input. As a small team, having a design partner that not only meets expectations but elevates them is a game-changer. They take ideas further than I could have imagined."

    — Alexa Bednarz

    Founder and CEO
    Ocean

  • "When we started Hell on Earth, we had a brand vision but struggled on how to bring it to life. The team at Paper Crane Factory was up to the challenge and created a powerful branding campaign for us for Go To Market, including our web site design, as well as unique logo and packaging for our product. They brought energy, responsiveness, and originality to the process, allowing us to gain a significant headstart with our startup e-commerce brand."

    — Joe Krouse

    Co-Founder and Head of Operations
    Hell on Earth

  • "Working with you all is truly a gift. You are a rare breed of colorful, kind, creative and caring birds that bring so much goodness to IZOZI.”

    — Eric and Cheri Plantenberg

    Founders
    IZOZI

  • "Cal and his team at Paper Crane Factory have been a close strategic as well as tactical partner of ours all the way from brand ideation to execution through our website launch and ongoing updates, video creation, campaign execution, Substack site launch, and fundraising materials. And we are a budget-limited non-profit, so to do all that while working with us inside our budget envelope has been unique for an agency in my long experience. I have really both enjoyed and appreciated working with Paper Crane Factory."

    — Rob Eleveld

    Co-Founder and CEO
    Transparency Coalition for AI

  • “We launched Wunderground with Paper Crane Factory because we knew they’d bring unmatched creativity to naming, package design, our cafe, basically wherever we turned them loose. We like having them on our cap table as investors, not vendors. We can always count on them as a partner.”

    — Jody Hall

    Founder and CEO
    Wunderground