Digital Marketing
Six years in.
Still learning.
Still building.
Spacesicle started with a simple idea: bring together people with different skills to help businesses solve real problems.
Six years later, the tools move faster. Research can happen in hours. Websites can be prototyped quickly. AI can organize information, analyze options, assist with code, and help communicate ideas.
But the part that matters most has not changed:
Understand the business. Understand the people. Solve the right problem.
See how we work
Hi, I'm Gabe.
20+ years around technology and business.
12+ years building a business in Downtown Sylvania.
6+ years learning through Spacesicle projects.
I grew up in Malaysia in an environment where getting ahead often felt like the entire point. School, work, competition — there was always another benchmark and another person to beat.
That discipline stayed with me. The zero-sum thinking did not.
My career eventually brought me deep into technology, hands-on computer work, business operations, and client service. When I started working for myself, I began asking a different question:
Instead of trying to outshout the competition, what is this business already genuinely good at — and how do we help more people recognize it?
That question eventually became part of Spacesicle.
Today I do not see my role as selling someone a predetermined agency package. I listen, diagnose, research, help define the problem, assemble the right people and tools, and stay involved until the work makes sense in the real world.
My approach
Ideas don't only happen on screens.
Spacesicle is also a physical place where independent professionals, artists, community organizations, filmmakers, and small businesses can meet, think, and work.
Explore the spaceDiagnose before prescribing.
A website, video, ad, or SEO campaign should be a response to a problem — not the starting assumption.
What is the business really trying to accomplish? What do customers value? What feels distinctive?
- 01 — Listen
- What is the business really trying to accomplish? What do customers value? What feels distinctive?
- 02 — Investigate
- Review the digital presence, reviews, competitors, search behavior, market context, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and constraints.
- 03 — Define
- Identify the actual problem. Compare time, cost, sustainability, and risk before deciding what should be built or changed.
- 04 — Build
- Bring in the right specialist when deeper expertise is needed. Designers design. Developers develop. Filmmakers make films. Gabe coordinates the project and client experience.
- 05 — Test
- Did the work meet the blueprint? What broke? What confused people? What still needs improvement?
- 06 — Follow up
- Revisit the result after launch instead of disappearing after delivery.
The whole environment
Like caring for a bonsai, good care starts by examining the whole environment before deciding what to prune, repot, feed, or move.
Video Production
Joshua Lightle
Filmmaker + Storyteller
Brand stories · Service videos · Creative collaborations
Watch selected work on YouTube
- Estate Jewelers: Company Introduction — 2020
An introduction to the business and the identity behind it.
Joshua Lightle — Principal filmmaker / camera operator. Gabe Ng — Assistant camera / project manager.
- Estate Jewelers: Custom Jewelry — 2020
A service-focused video promoting custom jewelry.
Joshua Lightle — Principal filmmaker / camera operator. Gabe Ng — Assistant camera / project manager.
- Estate Jewelers: Engagement Ring / Branding — 2020
A brand-focused video centered on engagement rings.
Joshua Lightle — Principal filmmaker / camera operator. Gabe Ng — Assistant camera / project manager.
- Noral Property Management — Website Video — 2020
Video content created for the company's website and search presence.
Joshua Lightle — Principal filmmaker / camera operator. Gabe Ng — Assistant camera / project manager.
- Music Video — Earlier Collaboration — Earlier collaboration · 2016
An earlier music-video collaboration for a Spacebar client.
Joshua Lightle — Principal filmmaker / camera operator. Gabe Ng — Assistant camera / project manager.
Good marketing should make people remember why they trust you.
Attention is useful. Loyalty is better.
The goal is not to manufacture a personality a business does not have. It is to make the things the business already does well easier for people to see, understand, and remember.
Why that matters
A paid ad can introduce someone to you. It cannot manufacture integrity, consistency, or the experience a customer has after they walk through the door.
I think marketing works best when it amplifies something real.
What six years taught me.
The client's audience matters more than my personal taste.
The customer isn't always right — but there is usually a point worth understanding.
I cannot control every outcome. I can control how I respond.
- There are many ways to communicate with a client. Mine is only one.
- A client may know exactly what they want.
- A client may only know that something is wrong.
- Sometimes the most valuable consulting starts with better questions.
- It is not about what I personally want the project to become.
- The people using the client's business are part of the design brief.
Human judgment.
AI can analyze the business.
A person can experience it.
The part I never want to automate away is saying,
“I'm sorry — I misunderstood what you were saying.”
A photo can show me what a place looks like.
It cannot completely recreate what it feels like to walk into a local business before opening time and find regular customers already gathering, talking, and settling into their routine.
Those details matter because digital marketing should help set the right expectation for the real experience — not create a polished fiction that disappears when the customer arrives.
Machine speed.
AI helps us move faster through:
- Research
- Competitive analysis
- SEO/search intent
- Communication
- Coding assistance
- Troubleshooting
- Information organization
- Content and video planning
Used well, AI can compare more information, surface additional perspectives, organize messy inputs, accelerate routine technical work, and expose blind spots earlier.
The value is not “AI-generated marketing.”
The value is getting through mechanical work faster so more attention can go where judgment is actually required.
What we do now.
Websites
Strategy · Design · Development · Rebuilds
Search Visibility
SEO · Local SEO · Google Business Profile · Search intent
Content
Strategy · Copywriting · Content planning
AI-Assisted Consulting
Research · Workflow design · Analysis · Decision support
Video + Creative
Video production · Editing · Branding · Design
We work best with businesses that have a real problem to solve.
- Professional services
- Excellent expertise can still feel intimidating or inaccessible.
- Retail
- Inventory, margins, technology, or operations may be creating pressure that marketing alone will not fix.
- Local businesses
- They may need content, photography, search visibility, and a site that accurately reflects the experience customers already love.
- Businesses in transition
- The company has evolved, but its website and digital identity still describe who it used to be.
Selected work
Spacebar
Website + Brand Evolution
A long-running project close to home: building and evolving the digital identity of a technology concierge business in Downtown Sylvania.
- Problem
- Create a digital presence that communicates technical expertise without feeling like a generic repair shop.
- Spacesicle contribution
- Branding, website strategy, design and development, with later iterations as the business evolved.
- Lesson
- Preparation dramatically reduces chaos once production begins.
A website should evolve as the business evolves.
Before
This historical version is no longer live.
View archived site (opens in a new tab) ↗After
Professional Services
Making expertise easier to approach.
- Problem
- Professional expertise can feel intimidating before a potential client ever makes contact.
- Work
- Website updates, search/social presence, content creation, and video.
- Lesson
- Different clients need different communication styles. Finding the right communication method is part of the work.
Sometimes the answer isn't another advertisement.
A retailer dealing with depreciating inventory and tight margins needed a different way to think about growth.
Spacesicle used business analysis to explore a complementary service model that could create another revenue stream instead of relying only on product sales.
Lesson:
You can provide the map.
The client still has to do the walking.
A working part of the community.
Real meetings. Real projects. Real conversations.
Need somewhere professional to meet?
Digital Marketing and Executive Coworking share the same idea:
give good work the environment it deserves.
Explore Executive CoworkingWhat are you trying to accomplish?
You do not need to know which service to ask for.
Tell me what you are working on, what is getting in the way, and what you would like to be different.
We'll figure out the right starting point.
Start a conversation