Today we’d like to introduce you to Lee Fuhr.
Hi Lee, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Sure thing. I grew up in New Jersey and excelled academically (thanks, Mom!). I went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where I double-majored in Information and Decision Systems and Human-Computer Interaction and minored in Psychology.
My career path wound through various roles, including stints at Maya Design, Sapient, and AOL, where I was the lead interaction designer for AOL Instant Messenger (it was a big deal back then, c’mon!). I also worked at a startup called Eventful and later at Teradata, focusing on complex data visualization tools.
A big turning point came when I met my future wife and moved across the country to be with her. This transition led me to try independent contracting. I grew this freelance business, rebranding to Cozy in 2015. We expanded to a team of six before Border acquired us in early 2024. I’m still running Cozy as a division of Border, carrying on our mission.
During my freelancing years, I hit the apparently-common-in-tech quarter-career crisis. I thought, “Am I really just gonna move pixels around screens for 50 years and then retire having not left anything behind?” After much introspection, I saw that I could help people who feel stressed and anxious because their work requires my work; they need creative execution, or they’ll never reach their goals. This recognition became the driving force behind the Cozy rebrand. It solidified our mission: using our digital design, content, and creative work expertise to help people feel better about themselves and their prospects. We found the most traction in supporting marketing and digital product teams, often in healthcare, tech, or startups.
Today, we focus on supporting B2B marketing teams in cornerstone industries like manufacturing, logistics, and utilities. These essential sectors often lack adequate creative support. Ultimately, I don’t give a hoot about the latest boxed water product or hip adventure brand. I want to work with the people and companies that keep the world running and help them feel better—less anxious, more Cozy. Get it?
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth! Ha! No. It has absolutely not been smooth. Anyone who’s tried their hand at freelancing knows the struggle. When you’re busy, you’re so busy. When you’re not busy, you’re filled with existential dread. You have to get good at riding the highs and holding on through the lows. Using the highs to fill the gaps from the lows. Using the freed up time during the lulls to get to the next high more quickly.
Over the years, the journey has built my resilience and trust in myself. It’s also taught me the challenge of managing time effectively. When you’re busy, you need to prepare for the next dip in the pipeline. This means doing extra work to develop future sales despite being swamped with current work. And when you’re not busy, it’s already too late, but that’s when you really need to hustle. And this is when your emotional demons can come out. You know what they say: if you need something done, ask a busy person. The counter is true; when you’re in a dip, it can get hard to get all that needs doin’ done.
Building Cozy has been a constant balancing act between delivering high-quality work for current clients and ensuring a steady flow of future projects. It’s taught me the importance of being reliable, timely, and tailored. These aren’t just buzzwords for us—they’re the foundation of how we alleviate stress for our clients, keep delivering at a high level, and generate that next recommendation that keeps the whole thing going.
As you know, we’re big fans of Cozy. What can you tell our readers who might not be as familiar with the brand?
At Cozy, we focus on two key areas in our mission to support B2B marketing teams (especially in those cornerstone industries): web design and content design. For web design, we create digital experiences that engage and convert. We’re not chasing awards or trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we craft websites, landing pages, emails, and ads that look great and drive results for our clients’ businesses.
On the content side, we develop clear, compelling content that resonates with our clients’ target audiences. It’s all about getting the right words to the right person at the right time. This combination of strong design and strategic content ensures that our clients’ marketing efforts are cohesive and effective.
I’ve seen firsthand how often B2B companies – especially in tech or traditional industries trying to modernize – struggle to create marketing that lives up to their product’s potential. It’s a common pain point. Marketing often lags behind other departments in investment, headcount, and focus. Most companies weren’t founded to do marketing. They’re driven to invest in tech, or R&D, or sales. But not marketing. This leads to stress and frustration for marketing teams, who are expected to drive quality leads without quality collateral.
I started Cozy because I saw how our abilities could alleviate that stress. There are usually three main reasons I see B2B companies struggling with their marketing:
- Outdated creative: As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results. Many companies try to attract new customers with the same old marketing collateral.
- Lagging quality: Many of our clients have great core products or services but don’t value the marketing for them equally. For many of their potential customers, marketing is the first (and second…) place they’ll experience our clients’ brands. So, under-supporting marketing really kneecaps the company’s potential reach.
- The expectation to do it all: Modern marketing is complicated! People outside the field often don’t understand, and marketers are expected to be experts at everything: design, copywriting, content, strategy, user experience design, and project management, not to mention things like marketing strategy, tooling, and measurement. It’s a lot to ask of any one person or small team.
That’s where we come in. We bring decades of experience in these areas to help alleviate our clients’ strain and help them reach their goals. Our approach is built on four fundamental principles that I’ve seen are necessary if we are to deliver on our mission of alleviating stress:
- Reliability: We do what we say we’ll do.
- Timeliness: We meet deadlines consistently.
- Quality: We deliver great work every time.
- Tailored: We adapt to each client’s specific needs.
To that end, we offer comprehensive creative support for all the things that a typical B2B marketing team might need: marketing websites, digital ads, UX prototypes, content strategy, copywriting, emails, print materials, packaging, presentations, branding, style guides, and copy editing. If a client needs other expertise adjacent to these, we can also source and manage that work.
What sets us apart, I think, is our focus on alleviating stress. We’re not just moving pixels around screens—we’re here to help people who need what we’re good at. We understand the pressure marketing teams are under, and we’re committed to delivering work that not only looks great but actually performs. We listen to what’s really keeping our clients up at night and do what we can to help them sleep soundly.
While it feels like every creative shop out there chases trendy consumer products (if I see one more adventure brand…), we’re passionate about bringing top-tier creative services to the companies that keep the world running. Whether it’s manufacturing, logistics, or utilities, we’re here to help these vital sectors communicate their value effectively and achieve their business objectives.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Mostly, I feel like I just read the whole Internet every day, and information soaks into the magical network that is the brain.
My favorite industry podcast is 2Bobs, hosted by David C Baker and Blair Enns: https://2bobs.com/
I also love Positioning by April Dunford: https://www.positioning.show/
And Hard Fork from the New York Times to stay on top of tech in general: https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork
Far and away, my best resource is my membership in the Bureau of Digital: https://bureauofdigital.com/
Pricing:
- Ongoing, embedded creative support starts at $11k/mo
- Projects start at $25k
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cozydesign.com/
- LinkedIn (Cozy): https://www.linkedin.com/company/cozysd
- LinkedIn (Lee): https://www.linkedin.com/in/leefuhr
