How Houston&Ko went from solopreneur clients to corporate ones

Houston&Ko is a Swiss talent partner helping organizations hire vetted freelancers — for marketing, admin, or finance support. It’s an experts-only platform, with only 10-15% of applicant freelancers passing the vetting process. Clients start working with their freelancers in as little as 7 days after sharing requirements — roughly 5x faster than a standard recruitment cycle.

Paula Kokare co-founded the company with Claire Ward Houston, and the two lead it to this day. Their first website was, in Paula’s words, “A mom-and-pop shop. We did it ourselves, and it spoke about us.” The nudge to change came from someone trying to sell them services and asking if they wanted to “sound professional.”

What happens when you know everything about your business except how to best explain it?

That was Houston&Ko’s starting position. The founders knew their market, their clients, and their craft — but none of it existed outside their minds.

“We know what we do. We know everything about ourselves. But we couldn’t translate it for the audience. Our first website described what we do, but it didn’t speak to anyone. No pain points, no benefits, no natural flow.”

Most founders write their first website. Paula calls it their “first baby”, and nobody criticizes the baby. Especially when the problem goes deeper than the writing.

Houston&Ko had no lookalike competitors to position against. Companies needing flexible support defaulted to two alternatives. Traditional recruiters, too slow and too expensive for part-time or per-project roles. Or marketplace hiring, where “pre-vetted” talent often meant whoever uploaded a profile photo.

Too slow and too expensive, or too risky and too complicated. Houston&Ko occupied the gap between.

There was a trust problem on top. Every talent platform claimed rigorous vetting, yet few did it. Houston&Ko genuinely did, but a claim everyone makes is worth nothing, even when it’s true.

The work started with questions. A lot of questions.

“Stefan pulled a lot of qualitative things out of our brains. Things we’d never put on paper, and he structured them in a way that makes sense for the audience.”

We ran the research, checking what the founders believed against what the market actually showed. Then the part most agencies skip — collecting the exact language their clients use.

The positioning wedge came from the two things Houston&Ko could prove and their alternatives couldn’t: real vetting and speed. Instead of competing with marketplaces on their terms, the messaging framed Houston&Ko as the third option that made the other two look like compromises.

Then came the copy. The full website, written to the buyer instead of about the company, structured around UX and page flow. Memorable lines anchored the pages. “Supercharge your team with expert remote talent” is still the live homepage hero as of July 2026. An FAQ went in for search, the call-booking flow lost its friction, and the delivery process got demystified.

The new messaging kept the SMB segment and opened the corporate one.

The biggest shift was the credibility to move upmarket. The goal was messaging that could stand up in a corporate procurement conversation. Everyone who talks to them checks out their website, and now what they find makes sense.

The mechanism looks quite simple on the surface. Their copy talks to the audience, in their own language, instead of talking at them about the company. Over time, it helped them land over 200 new clients.

Then there’s the durability. The copy stayed live, largely unchanged, through market shifts, COVID, and the emergence of AI. Even as Houston&Ko now invests in SEO and AEO, the core messaging has stayed in place — newer pages build on it rather than replace it.

“Stefan brought fresh ideas and challenged our thinking. The end result is well above what we could’ve done on our own. Clients regularly tell us, unprompted, how clean and professional our website is. Most of the copy is still live today, years later. I can’t think of a stronger endorsement than that.”

Today, Houston&Ko is building toward the next stage, on foundations that don't need rebuilding.