Before & After

What Before & After does

Before & After is a Toronto-based creativity training and consulting firm founded in 1993 by Tom Monahan, a former top creative director in advertising and co-founder of Leonard/Monahan. The company develops and licenses proprietary applied-creativity methodologies — including Do-it-yourself Lobotomy, FlashFlood Brainstorming, 100MPH Thinking, Intergalactic Thinking, and reFocus Groups — that are designed to help corporate teams and advertising professionals generate large volumes of original ideas and overcome cognitive biases in ideation. All methodologies are developed in-house by the founder and delivered by a virtual bench of licensed creative thinking coaches personally trained by him.

Name

Before & After

Legal name

Before & After, Inc.

Website

https://before-after.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1993

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Before & After is a Toronto-based creativity training and consulting firm founded in 1993 that delivers proprietary brainstorming and ideation methodologies to enterprise clients across advertising, retail, consumer goods, and financial services through licensed coaches in in-person workshops.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Professional Creativity Training and Ideation Services

NAICS

Professional and Management Development Training (611430), Professional and Management Development Training (61143)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742), Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYEDAMAHAD

Innovation & Design Thinking Programs

Education/Supplemental & Enrichment Programs (Arts, STEM, Language)/Entrepreneurship & Business Enrichment

Keywords

• Creativity training
• Brainstorming facilitation
• Applied creativity
• Ideation workshops
• Focus group research

Headquarters

HQ city

Toronto

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Creativity Training Workshops: Professional development workshops delivered in-person, ranging from 1-hour keynotes to full-day sessions. Most popular format is a half-day session of 2-4 hours. Ideal for training programs, marketing offsites, team building sessions, and professional organization meetings.
2. Applied Creativity / FlashFlood Brainstorming: On-site brainstorming coaching sessions where B&A coaches help teams generate hundreds or thousands of fresh ideas for products, promotions, company names, product names, and more.
3. reFocus Groups: Consumer research sessions combining proprietary brainstorming methods with focus group dynamics to uncover customer insights and ideas.
4. Custom Programs: Tailored creativity programs designed to meet specific client needs, combining various B&A methodologies.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Before & After delivers in-person and virtual creativity training workshops and brainstorming facilitation services to corporate clients. Their flagship offerings include the Do-it-yourself Lobotomy workshop, FlashFlood Brainstorming ideation sessions, and reFocus Groups, all led by licensed creative thinking coaches personally trained by founder Tom Monahan.

Product overview

Before & After is a creativity training and consulting company offering a portfolio of professional development and ideation services. The core offerings include: (1) Do-it-yourself Lobotomy, a workshop teaching practical creative thinking skills; (2) Applied Creativity featuring FlashFlood Brainstorming sessions for generating fresh business ideas; (3) reFocus Groups, combining proprietary brainstorming with traditional focus group methodology; and (4) The Combo Package bundling workshops with brainstorming. All services are delivered by licensed creative thinking coaches trained by founder Tom Monahan. The company does not offer software products but rather facilitated training programs and brainstorming sessions.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• FlashFlood Brainstorming: Proprietary idea-generating technique based on 'more is better' and 'what we know hurts us' principles. A fast-paced session designed to generate hundreds or thousands of truly original ideas.
• 100MPH Thinking
• Intergalactic Thinking
• Do-it-yourself Lobotomy
• reFocus Group

Products and services

• Do-it-yourself Lobotomy Creativity Training Workshop A creative thinking workshop that helps people become better problem solvers by becoming better creative thinkers. Runs from a 1-hour keynote to a full-day session; ideal for training programs, marketing offsites, team building sessions, or professional organization meetings.
• Applied Creativity / FlashFlood Brainstorming A coaching service that brings B&A FlashFlood Brainstorming coaches into companies to help teams generate hundreds or thousands of fresh ideas for new products, promotions, company names, product names, and more. Built on the proprietary FlashFlood Brainstorming technique based on quantity over quality and overcoming cognitive biases.
• reFocus Groups A consumer research offering that combines B&A's proprietary FlashFlood Brainstorming with conventional focus groups. Uses the minds of customers, prospects, or channel partners in dialogue to uncover consumer needs and generate new product, service, and promotional ideas. Sessions routinely yield 1,000 or more ideas.
• The Combo Package A bundled program combining the Do-it-yourself Lobotomy workshop and FlashFlood Brainstorming sessions, typically delivered in two half-day back-to-back sessions.
• Custom Creativity Programs Customized creativity programs tailored to specific organizational needs when standard programs do not fit requirements, combining various B&A methodologies (FlashFlood Brainstorming, 100MPH Thinking, Intergalactic Thinking, Do-it-yourself Lobotomy).

Quantifiable outcome

• Trained over 250,000 business people on four continents
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers31 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Frog Design: Frog is a global design and innovation consultancy offering research, design thinking and creative workshop engagements to enterprise clients — overlapping B&A's enterprise customer base with a broader design and product portfolio.
• Doblin (Deloitte): Doblin, now part of Deloitte, is one of the oldest innovation consultancies offering structured innovation and creativity services to Fortune 500 clients — overlapping B&A's enterprise target market and ideation/training offerings within a much broader consulting portfolio.
• IDEO: IDEO is a globally recognized design and innovation consultancy offering design thinking training, workshops and IDEO U courses to corporate teams — comparable to B&A's creativity-training target customers but at significantly larger scale and broader portfolio.
• ?What If! (Accenture): ?What If! is an innovation and creativity consultancy (now part of Accenture Song) that delivers ideation workshops, training and creative sprints to global brands — directly comparable to B&A's applied creativity / FlashFlood offering for enterprise marketing teams.

Regional players

• KaosPilot: KaosPilot is a Denmark-based innovation education school and consultancy running creative leadership and ideation programs for businesses — directly comparable as an applied creativity/ideation education provider, though primarily serving European markets rather than North America.

Emerging players

• Business Innovation Factory (BIF): BIF is a Providence, RI-based innovation lab and consultancy that runs innovation summits, workshops and storytelling sessions for enterprises — adjacent to B&A's focus group and applied creativity work, with similar regional footprint.

Others

• Pentagram: Pentagram is a globally recognized independent design consultancy serving many of the same Fortune 500 enterprise clients as B&A — adjacent rather than directly competitive, as Pentagram focuses on brand and design rather than creativity training.
• MasterClass: MasterClass is an online learning platform offering pre-recorded courses on creativity, writing and ideation from leading practitioners — adjacent to B&A's creativity training mission but operating a digital subscription model rather than live facilitation.
• CreativeLive: CreativeLive is an online education platform offering courses on creativity, business and design — thematically adjacent to B&A's applied creativity training but delivered via on-demand video rather than facilitated workshops.

Direct peers

• Synecticsworld: Synectics is a long-standing creativity and innovation facilitation firm offering structured ideation workshops and training programs to enterprises — directly comparable to B&A's FlashFlood-style facilitation business and target client base.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Before & After