How Brightwave Studio plans to use a CRM to reach 10 million creators
Meet Brightwave
- Brightwave, a digital product studio
- Based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- Interviewees: co-founders Mara and Joost, and Elin and Priya from the Growth team
BRIGHTWAVExtessel
Watch on tessel.tvA sales flow that keeps the human touch
This year we set a new mission: reach ten million creators by 2032. To get there, we need to do everything at scale. But we're in a relationships business, and doing personal work at scale is genuinely hard. We had to find a way to automate without losing ourselves.
To hit a goal that ambitious, Brightwave first had to understand what set them apart from other studios so they could repeat it on purpose. They knew they won projects by building strong relationships early, sending pitches shaped around each creator's world, and moving faster than anyone else in the room. But scaling that reliably meant the whole team needed a CRM they could actually collaborate in — without draining morale. Easier said than done, until now.
Brightwave's Growth Lead, Elin, set out to find “a CRM the team would open on purpose.” She knew that if she could get everyone to actually use one tool, the founders could stay focused on new relationships while the growth team automated and accelerated the rest of the pipeline — especially proposal prep. So she went looking for the right one…
Their exact process for personalizing at scale
Relationships matter in every industry, but in the studio world it's times ten. It's remarkable how often clients tell us they picked us simply because they trust us and believe in us. The key lesson was to spend less time polishing tiny details and more time deepening those relationships.
Brightwave has managed to streamline their sales process — without flattening the personal side — by automating the mechanical parts and delegating specific stages to different people on the team. Everyone's first job is building trust; each person just contributes to it in their own way. Including Tessel.
Here's the sales flow that's worked for the studio:
- The co-founders focus on running discovery calls with potential clients — usually eight a day — and spend that time nurturing genuine connections.
- Each call is recorded and synced into Tessel automatically via integrations, so the Growth team can review the conversation right away. Slack pings the team whenever there's a new proposal to start.
- Within 24 hours, the Growth team turns those conversations into a pitch deck tailored to each client's exact needs.
This rhythm lets Brightwave keep a high-touch approach across a growing client base. It's as simple as pairing the founders' personal attention with the systematic execution of the growth team.
Tessel favorites that are anything but boring
Warmest intro — Elin
“For me, seeing who on the team has the closest contact with each client is the standout. It's not just what you're selling — it's who's actually selling it. Our win rate is undeniably higher when the person with the strongest relationship presents the proposal. That used to be a gut feeling; now we have a metric that proves it. That's incredibly valuable to us.”
Messages & Sequences — Mara
“I understood early on that this wasn't just about bringing in leads — it's about tending relationships. Once I saw the features, I knew we could use this to stay close to every client we've ever worked with. So now we send a regular note to our alumni program, but far more personal. We offer workshops, festival tickets, invitations to studio nights — all the things that keep us close to our clients.”
Enrichment — Priya
“There's not one extra button in Tessel beyond what needs to be there, and my favorite is 'Enrich.' My main job is making sure the whole team has what they need in one big dashboard. The moment I have a client's profile link, I get everything else: where they're based, what role they're in, their email — sometimes their phone number. It makes my life very easy.”
Now their CRM works for them, so they can get back to creative work
A future-proof CRM should run quietly in the background. I go to Tessel for my insights, my boards, and a look at the pipeline — but I never have to go there just to tell it what to do. That's the beauty of it.
Yes, Tessel helps Brightwave systemize and scale their sales process — but what first won the team over was how simple, beautiful, and genuinely enjoyable it was to use. That's what initially set Tessel apart from the “soul-crushing” CRMs they'd tried and abandoned in the past.
What keeps them coming back, day in and day out, is the impact they're seeing since rolling it out. Recent launches like assisted follow-ups and pipeline dashboards line up exactly with Brightwave's picture of a future-proof CRM. The team is running high-touch sales with more and more creators — while reclaiming time for the creative work itself. Ultimately, they're making real progress on their wild dream of reaching ten million creators.