Treehouse Adventures, LLC – a venture capital group focused on service line companies with innovation at their core and established by Bob Clark – announces the launch of MU/DAI, an innovation and user experience design firm, backed by the industry’s most seasoned practitioners. MU/DAI is the second investment by Treehouse. PJ Bickett, a pioneer in operationalizing user-centric firms, has been tapped to serve as Chief Operating Officer in the company’s Chicago headquarters.
At its core, MU/DAI is a problem-solving agency that blends expertise in innovation, design and technology to connection points in the digital and physical worlds. The company will transform ideas into digital products that matter to the market through design-focused thinking, strategic innovation and transformative technology.
“It was important to Treehouse to enter the design business and, more importantly, to find the right group of people to revolutionize the space and make real magic happen,” said Clark, CEO and principal of Treehouse Adventures. “With PJ and Shanon Marks crafting the vision and leading the future of MU/DAI, I am very excited to see the positive impact on clients’ top and bottom lines.”
PJ Bickett has built his career on disrupting existing industries and technologies, as an entrepreneur and a leader within large consultancies. Bickett played a role in the resurgence of Manifest Digital’s user experience practice and ran the central region of Accenture’s Acquity/Fjord experience design agency. Bickett will reunite with his former Accenture colleague Shanon Marks, who will serve as MU/DAI’s Chief Innovation Officer. Based in Los Angeles, Marks has long been at the forefront of innovative technologies, including his 3D printing surfboard company, MADE Boards.
“I have been working in the user experience space for over two decades, and I am very excited to draw upon that experience to expedite the time from concept to market for our clients. For too long, clients have faced high costs and long periods of development,” said Bickett. “At MU/DAI, we look forward to leveraging our extremely talented team to speed up the go-to-market time.”
MU/DAI’s innovation and design expertise will extend to the following areas: connected devices, wearable technologies, mobile app development, product design, content strategy and development, design research, product innovation, and eCommerce.
