Project Overview
Audience: Amazon-native Manufacturer Focus Areas: Product Strategy, Brand Positioning, Experience Design, Cross-Functional Alignment Role: Led by Kyle MacDonald at Thrasio, via a multidisciplinary internal team ("The Bounce House")
The Opportunity
Kizen was a high-performing Amazon brand with strong sales but little emotional equity. It had no real story, no visual coherence, and no path beyond its top-selling SKU—a digital kitchen thermometer. With other aggregator brands entering the space, differentiation wasn’t optional anymore.
The Re-businessing
Our team reframed the problem from "update the brand" to: “What if this thermometer was a category-defining product, not just a top-selling tool?” We launched a sprint we called the Brand Bolster, focused on realigning the brand’s emotional and functional center without discarding its existing success. This was full-spectrum rebusinessing: A new product experience built around confidence, precision, and joy in everyday cooking • Refined brand positioning rooted in emotional value (not just utility) • A visual and verbal system capable of stretching across new SKUs • Lightweight UX enhancements like the “New Version Widget” to evolve packaging, documentation, and product feel in tandem
Kizen didn’t need reinvention—it needed redirection. And in just a few weeks, we gave it a future-ready platform that could grow beyond the algorithm.
The Outcome
Although the project was paused due to a company-wide RIF, we delivered: A full industrial + brand redesign, user-centered product experience roadmap, refreshed brand architecture and naming conventions, and internal alignment across design, operations, and supply chain