A full-service digital consulting firm recently launched in Charlotte and is building up its client base.
Cabin focuses heavily on three core offerings: product design, strategy and software engineering. The firm provides those services to organizations that may need help tackling digital problems and bringing innovative ideas to life. Clients could include startup founders as well as leaders across major industries such as financial services, health care, energy, retail, industrial and education.
"It's all around the digital experience — mobile, web and anything customer facing, business-to-business, innovation, research, etc.," said John Tuders, head of growth and development at Cabin. "So we could go from ideation to coming up with ideas on how to solve a digital experience to actually developing it."
Cabin's office is located in the Gather Wilmore building at 529 W. Summit Ave. in Charlotte. It held a launch event April 25 with more than 100 people in attendance.
The firm's founding partners include Tuders; Michael Lum, managing partner; Stephanie Hill, head of strategy; Lindsay Pringle, head of design; and Chuck Preslar, head of engineering. Cabin's senior talent has experience across various industries, which Tuders said he believes is a big differentiator of the company.
Tuders has more than two decades of innovation experience under his belt. He's worked in product strategy, innovation, design and global fraud at Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC). Tuders still teaches innovation, design, executive communication and human behavior at UNC Charlotte, where he's worked as an adjunct professor since 2012.
The founders of Cabin and parent company Post Ventures have been part of the entrepreneurial community in Charlotte since the creation of Skookum back in 2005.
"I've wanted to do this for a while," Tuders said. "I wanted to start my own business. This is kind of a dream environment for me."
Cabin is working to be different from most digital consulting firms, he said. The company's name reflects that goal, representing how the firm aims to bring together friends, experts and leaders to inspire and cultivate new ideas under one roof.
At the heart of Cabin is building trusted relationships and human connections, enabling the firm to attract top talent and create a hub for high-value skills to meet complex challenges. Cabin also teaches clients how it develops the solutions they need.
"That Cabin feel of we're doing it with friends; we're doing it with partners in a safe environment where we get to come up with ideas and feel comfortable doing it," Tuders said. "All those things is what sparked us to be able to do this."
The company is already working with clients in the financial services, insurance and academia sectors. It is currently in the process of securing more clients in the retail and manufacturing industries.
Tuders said Cabin is working to double its employee base, which currently stands at 10. It's also looking to grow its client portfolio.
"One of the big things as for Cabin was we needed to get back to having talent that we love; to work with relationships that we'd love to be around; and the ability to be able to be small enough to do it the way we know we need to," he said.
