Nuno decided to leave Germany to return to Portugal and launch a company specializing in WordPress websites and eCommerce. Today WidgiLabs is an established company with a portfolio that includes clients such as Uniplaces, Observador and ECO.

When Nuno left the European Space Agency and returned to Portugal, he came armed with a dream: to launch a company. Since then WidgiLabs has established itself in the Portuguese market as a company specializing in WordPress, as well as the creation of websites and eCommerce. The company’s portfolio includes both national and international clients with two of the most successful projects being the launch of two Portuguese media channels, Observador and ECO. They have also worked with clients from different industry sectors, including several startups such as Uniplaces, which is now an international case study and one of the most successful startups in Portugal.

What exactly does WidgiLabs do?

WidgiLabs creates differentiated web presence solutions based entirely on WordPress, helps define digital strategies, and tracks our clients’ projects from conception to go-to-market.

How did WidgiLabs come about?

WidgiLabs came about from our aspiration to create a place where we would love to work, with a great team of people, and on projects that sparked our interest so we wouldn’t feel bored going to work on Monday mornings. I always dreamed about a workplace like that where we would have the means to create, explore and bring people’s dreams to life. After living for two years in Germany, we decided to return to Portugal because we started to see a different dynamic with events and the blooming entrepreneurial scene, which was very different from when we left. We wanted to work with clients around the world and also be closer to our families and to the amazing Portuguese food and weather.

How many people are working in your team?

We work with a daily team of multiple diverse people, and will be bringing on a couple more in the next coming months. It is a strategically small team and for each project we bring in key people to complement with expertise in different areas according to the projects needs. This approach works to our advantage because we benefit from a strong core with solid knowledge and we utilise resources that bring a different and multidisciplinary perspective. For this reason, we have an extensive network of contacts, which directly and indirectly contribute to the success of our projects.

Why does WidgiLabs focus solely on WordPress and what are the main advantages of this platform?

It was a decision we made early on based on the fact that WordPress stands at the intersection of what we loved to do and what the market needed and was willing to pay for. Due to our background in computer engineering, we could have adopted other technologies and platforms, but WordPress has been with us since we started blogging and so we were led to explore it more deeply and play around to see what we could do with it. It is an open-source, which is very important to us, and we  developed a good expertise and understanding of it from the development of our first SaaS product. 

Is WordPress inadequate for some specific projects?

It is important to say we do not recommend WordPress blindly for every project. There are very specific projects that will probably not gain much by using it, and, in that case, it is best to accept that. However, more important than the tool itself is who you are going to hire to help leveraging the tool. If you look at some of the top websites in the world, you’ll see they use very different programs(Java, PHP, Ruby, etc.). Nevertheless, they all have a good digital presence that supports their businesses.  

Had you always intended to create your own company or did entrepreneurship come about in an unexpected way?

It was already a dream we had had since university. One colleague challenged me with the question: “Have you ever thought about creating your own job?” At the time, we were reading Paul Graham’s “Hackers & Painters”, and creating a startup seemed like the thing destined for those who wanted to make a difference in the world, work with the best technologies and somehow dictate their own game and have the freedom to be different.

What led a computer engineer to switch positions at the European Space Agency in Germany and return to Portugal to set up his own company?

The will to achieve more and to do things our own way, with people we like. And the challenge of working for yourself and living the adventure of having a business of your own and seeing how far you can go.

After these years, how has the feedback been?

Very positive. WidgiLabs is a company with a solid position in the market and the skills to respond to projects with varying degrees of complexity. The fact of being a small company makes it very agile. The sectors we work with the most are media, industry, banking, agencies, e-commerce, startups, e-learning platforms and niche blogs, among others. We’ve also developed international projects, mainly in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Angola.

What have been your main projects over time?

Last year we were responsible for the digital launch of ECO.pt, an online Portuguese newspaper, where we had the opportunity to work with a media team and managed to reach the market with a differentiating product for both the web and mobile.  The project ended up winning Meios & Publicidade’s magazine award “Launch of the Year”. Prior to this, we also won the equivalent award with the Observador, where we integrated the development team of a project that became a reference for the media market in Portugal, and for the possiblities of what can be achieved with WordPress.

I would also like to highlight the creation of the Forbes Portugal website where we were able to use WordPress as a one-stop backoffice for all their contents.

We also worked with startups to launch rapid solutions to test new concepts in the market, such as Uniplaces, for which we developed the first prototype of the product that won the Startup Weekend and allowed them to realise their idea. Fortunately today, they are a case study and maintain a successful international presence.

In projects related to the industry, I can highlight the redesign of Liveplace’s digital presence. This company is the leader in Portugal for the sale of constructive solutions and already has 11 stores spread throughout the country.

Would you say WidgiLabs is most focused on media projects?

We are dedicated to giving the same kind of answers for different industries. But digital media  is rapidly changing and we feel there is a ton of untapped opportunities to explore. It is also an area where we have developed great expertise by working directly with journalists and newsrooms. 

Are there any new projects you can tell us about?

For now, I can’t reveal much information, due to customer confidentiality, but we will soon be able to disclose some details. We are mainly active in areas such as e-commerce, the creation of marketplaces, innovative digital presences and customized solutions for startups and SMEs.

Are there many companies in Portugal working exclusively with WordPress?

Thousands of businesses already run on WordPress and so the number of companies providing WordPress services has been growing. And I believe that number will increase even more with time. What is important is that we remain different from our competition. The market is increasingly competitive but we see this in a positive light. We even made it part of our mission: to accelerate the growth of WordPress and its ecosystem. One of the main advantages of WordPress for clients is that it won’t make you hostage of a single company or supplier if things go wrong. WordPress clients can be assured that they will never be stuck with a particular supplier or an outdated custom-built legacy software that is obsolete and with which new suppliers won’t accept to work (because they don’t want to open a “can of worms”.) 

What makes WidgiLabs different from the competition?

If you look at agencies that provide services relying on WordPress, many create websites based on “premium themes” rather than custom themes, which is something we offer. Another factor is that our core is development rather than design, and that we’ve been using WordPress as a framework for years now (to create startup platforms like Uniplaces, andB2B marketplaces, etc).

We also participate with and promote the local WordPress Portuguese community by organizing meetups and WordCamp Lisboa (the international WordPress conference).

Other differentiating factors include the fact that we have products based on WordPress, the experience of running websites with millions of monthly pageviews and that our team includes developers that have contributed to the WordPress core before. This puts WidgiLabs in a very unique position.

What has changed in the market and what are the challenges of the future?

When we started, there was a lot of talk around the crisis and austerity of 2008, but what we saw, perhaps because it was in a space like Coworklisboa, were people who wanted to invest both in the creation of new businesses and in the remodeling and growth of existing businesses. Thanks to a fantastic team, we have been able to sustain this growth. If a site does not catch our eye or if something does not work, it is very easy to close that browsing window, and go to Facebook or another site. That is the big challenge and will continue to be; capturing people’s attention. It has never been so important for brands to be able to surprise and have an online presence that catches people’s attention and presents something different than what they expect. This is our focus, which isalways based on WordPress because we think it is the best tool to achieve this.

Are you one of the pioneers of WordPress in Portugal?

I think we were pioneers in the creation of WidgiLabs, as a company focused exclusively on WordPress. When we started, some people asked “why do you only work with WordPress?” and “how do you manage to do that”? Fortunately, we have received very positive feedback from our customers. It is important to realize that WordPress was born as a platform for blogging. This was its main purpose for many years. It was used by people to post to a personal blog, period. That’s how I also started interacting with WordPress during college, where I customized the template and the plugins of my blog. But by then there were several other programmers working with WordPress.

Has WidgiLabs received any external financing? Would you be available to integrate new partners into the company?

The company has only equity capital and we have not yet received external financing. We had an investment proposal early on but by then, more than monetary investment, we wanted to be advised and build our networking and contacts. We ended up not accepting it because there seemed to be too many limitations and we did not want to start our company with those kinds of limitations, but it is something that we will review again very soon, since there are always opportunities at this level.

What did you leave behind in Germany and what did you gain from your return to Portugal?

I came back to a country with a new entrepreneurial dynamic. When we moved to Germany, things were different in Portugal. The market was at a different stage. And even though we came back at a time when the country was going through financial crisis, some innovation trends could already be felt. For example, the creation of coworking spaces and events that mobilized people to start new things. This trend has continued to this day, with increasing impact, and all of this made us decide to return. We realize that we don’t have to be out of the country to enjoy those things. When we live in another country we appreciate what we have in Portugal. While living here, even if unconsciously, it seems that we are waiting for the country to give us something, to provide jobs and opportunities. But when we go abroad we realize that “okay I’m not from this country, so nobody will give me anything. I’ll have to do it for myself”. And we changed our mindset. After changing it, being abroad or back in Portugal makes no difference.

And what are the main differences between the two countries?

Not wanting to make generalizations, but the time I lived in Germany leads me to believe that the main differences are in terms of word of honor, values and ethics. Somehow in Germany when someone tells us that something is going to be done (even at the level of public services) we can trust that it will be done. There is also the matterof punctuality and following rules, and above all there is the matter of training.The education system is very good. To date, Germany has produced more than 100 Nobel Prizes in several areas. Then there is the question of the standard of living being far above average. In Europe it is only surpassed by Finland and Denmark.

How do you view the ecosystem of startups in Portugal?

Entrepreneurship has been greatly promoted in Portugal in recent years. There are several agents who are doing a fantastic job in this area. However, I think there is too much focus on “raising capital”. This leads one to think that the only way to grow is just that, and that the companies that raise investment are the only “winners.” There are a number of businesses with revenues between 1 -2 million euros a year that are left out of the ecosystem because there are no resources to empower people to grow these businesses or use alternative forms of financing such as revenue-based financing.

Does Portugal have the potential to grow and transform its startups into leading companies operating in the international market?

I’m sure it does. Turning our startups into global reference companies implies, above all, realizing that it’s not just a matter of mindset. To be a leader you need to invest heavily in training, marketing and innovation. And if in the past there were no examples to present, today Portugal already has some examples that can be an inspiration. But the real point is to “invest”.

What does Portugal have to offer to national and international entrepreneurs?

Talent, support to entrepreneurs, climate / gastronomy / hospitality, groups of makers, hackers, programmers, engineers, coworking spaces, cultural events. A lot of things.

What are the main difficulties of starting a new business?

Being too involved in day-to-day operations and not focusing on other business areas such as building a leadership / management team, internationalization, recruiting, etc.

As an entrepreneur, what are your main daily routines in managing your business and your life?

I don’t know if there are any fixed routines that I follow. The truth is, I do not like them! What I do know is that I don’t spend enough time dreaming and celebrating, two essential activities for any entrepreneur, manager or leader. It is from dreaming that action ensues, and we should enjoy the moments of celebration to gain inner strength and continue to pursue them.

Before I started WidgiLabs I attended a weekend seed bootcamp for entrepreneurs in Lisbon.  

It went very well, we received good suggestions and it was very helpful. The projects that are going to receive funding are still not known but I can say that we are very enthusiastic about our project, more motivated than ever and we went from “we must believe this will work” phase to “now we know what to do and how it will be processed”. We have risks that we are running clear but we know what they are and this reduces the uncertainty of the whole process.

It lasted Friday and Saturday all day. On Friday we spoke about Strategy, Business Models, Financial Management, Accounting and Tax. Saturday was about Business and Marketing.

On Saturday afternoon the teams made their “elevator pitch” and also a presentation of about 30 minutes about their projects to the advisory board of investing fund, made up of people from the financial area, intellectual property, lawyers, etc.

Some things I came to realize:

When you start thinking about an idea for a project, which may eventually justify the creation of a company, you do not always know what it means. When making cash flows, even if in the form of forecasting, one realizes that in order to have a company it is necessary to achieve a certain volume of business to compensate the creation of the same one. Cash flows are also useful for understanding what initial investment is needed. It ceases to be a totally invented thing and you have a concrete plan in the paper that allows you to see month after month if we are going in the right direction or if something needs to be adjusted, e.g. the sales effort or the marketing effort.

Perhaps most important of all was the realisation once again of the importance of getting out of the comfort zone and going to talk to people about what is important to them and whether our idea will solve a real problem.

What seed investors are doing is reducing the entry barriers that exist in Portugal for the new technological entrepreneurs. Most of the initiatives of the genre (IAPMEI, banks, etc.) are extremely bureaucratic and treat everything in the same way, whether your business is a dog wagon or a technological thing. Usually a business plan is quickly demanded and there is no help in developing it.

Having an idea that at first seems to have potential, one learns what questions one needs to be able to answer in order to analyse their feasibility, as opposed to other initiatives where one has to answer the same (possibly more) questions, without being aware of their importance and how to get to the answers, and that is fundamental.

We applied with OpenTipi, a SaaS application for real estate websites. 

We got an offer for investing in our idea but decided in the end not going for it. 

Instead we started working on our idea and returned from Germany to Portugal. 

Going to Germany was a big step for me. Somehow it seems that while I was living in my own country, where all is familiar, I kind felt “safe” and was expecting a job and work my way from there. 

Once I moved and realised I was living abroad then suddenly it hit me that in that country I was just one more and that I couldn’t just call a friend, my family or even the state for support.

When you move into a new country there is rush that lasts for a while. After all, everything is new and you have the desire to see, explore, visit and get acquainted. 

The job I was doing was providing software support for the mission control system used by three satellite flying missions: Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express.

Meanwhile Ana got an interview on another contractor company for a similar position but working with satellite simulators and she gladly took it and packed to Germany as well. 

The main part of the job was providing support, like a helpdesk, to issues reported by the scientists operating the spacecrafts through the software we supported. They would upload commands to the spacecraft and download telemetry data from them. In this process some things would not go as expected and so one person on my team would investigate and report back. Occasionally we would also implement new features and improvements to the software.

Because of the nature of our job we would most days come into the premises and spend time there along side scientists, management and staff (most of them experienced contractors that had made the jump). Making the jump (getting hired as staff) seemed like the biggest dream along the contracts. With a staff position you get better benefits, a higher pay and the thought around it said you were pretty much set for life. 

For me it wasn’t that much of a deal. I had just recently joined anyway and the prospect of become staff was simply not interesting for me. Staff positions were mostly management positions and I was looking instead to get my hands dirty with exciting technologies and eating pizza with fellow hackers. 

After the initial rush of moving to Germany settled (probably after a year or so) it wasn’t long until I become quite bored with work as well and lost any sense of purpose/joy. I became angry, mostly at myself, and lashed out at people and at home after a day’s work. 

 I started dreading going to work and complaining about it to friends and Ana. Those were tuff days. 

I somehow stayed another few months before I turned in my resignation letter. In retrospective it was way longer than it should have been. I didn’t want to disappoint the people that had believed in me and I was afraid of what would be of my future career. 

Lucky enough Ana and I had meet a couple of friends that were very supportive of us and encouraging. I clearly remember discussing the possibility of quitting and doing something on my own and them replied “Yes, I think you would be very good at that!” – oh boy that really sparked the flame inside. Someone believed I could do it. Maybe she was right, maybe I could. 

I discussed this possibility heavily with Ana and I clearly remember us talking about it on a outdoor cafe one day.  The rational was something along the lines of “if we don’t do it know we’ll never do it” and also “we’re at a time where we can risk it, in a few years it won’t be so easy”. About us working together we were still afraid but we decided to make the plunge.

After I turned in my resignation letter some of my most enjoyable work days followed. I would sleep in, eat at the local University canteen and then work in the afternoon on stuff I liked and blog about it. I was in heaven! Although I wasn’t very productive. 

I was playing again with the idea of starting a business in my head. The idea had been there all along, even while working for ESA, I would drift off and think about what possible applications I could built and how to make money of of them. 

At that time I was also seeing a new movement starting in Portugal. When I had left in 2007 the job market wasn’t all that attractive and there was no tech scene. But now I was starting to see the rise of coworking spaces, hacker meetups, conferences and the sorts and started to think about moving back. After all I thought that the best way to meet people that are interested, smart and have initiative was to attend one of these many hacker events.

I visited Portugal in December 2009 for an event called Sapo Codebits that featured both conference talks and also a programming marathon/contest for people to come up with new apps.

I came in without any expectations and in fact I knew very few people there but eventually I became friends with another guy and we started hacking away on this crazy idea: what if you could go back one year and see exactly where you were, see pictures of it, see how you felt, what you saw, etc?

So we build this app that would navigate your social feeds in a time-machine like format that allowed you to navigate back and forth. It has pretty wild and due to popular vote we ended up winning the first prize – an iPod, a Macbook Pro and other goodies! 

Ana was seeing the event in livestream from Germany and almost feel off her chair when she saw me going up to stage to collect that first prize. 

At that time I was also attended a two-day event in Lisbon called “Kickstart Mini-MBA” with Mário Valente. During the event we discussed several topics, most of them for which I expect you get a full course while doing an MBA. Each topic was covered in a 1-hour round with plenty of time for questions and discussions, which was cool.

At night we had dinner with Paulo Laureano, which I’m a big fan (go Siteseed 3), with discussions around starting security startups, taking capital from the gov. vs from banks, etc.

On the second day it was a bit heavy with all the giants we had to cover (Finance, Accounting, etc). Lunch was at the beautiful restaurant at the top of the Tivoli Oriente Hotel, and the nice weather allowed for a terrific view to the sea (I felt like living the life of a rich person there).

The evening was full of very interesting material and the way Mário talks helped to chew, the sometimes otherwise dead boring topics.

In the end it made me realize a lot of things. Maybe the most important one: you really benefit from knowing business administration stuff. It is really useful. It is not like some people say: “what you don’t know you can learn on the way”. Or, let me rephrase that, you can learn on the way, but you will be learning from your own mistakes, and that’s not the easiest way of learning.

My first job was as a programer at YDreams (now called YDreams Global). 

I integrated a team of 6 fellow programmers and one of them was the friend that had invited me into the company. I later found he was also the one that contributed the most for me getting the job. This was because he told management I was just like him. At the prospect of such strong referral they didn’t hesitate to bring me on-board.

We developed projects based on Actionscript: small interactive things like a puzzle that you would complete by dragging pieces with a flashlight or walking over an interactive video.

We used image tracking software as a core library and used a webcam and a projector display to detect movements. It was quite cool.  

Most of the projects consisted of:

– Projector display;

– Webcam;

– Software doing pattern detecting and tracking and triggering animations or actions;

As a team we started developing what we called YCom, our own library with common used classes and utils. With every project we would add something to YCom, making it more useful and increasing code reusing. We also developed unit tests for this code. 

We developed a strong culture of “team” and occasionally bashed out on other teams such as “designers“, “project managers“, Q&A, management, IT, etc. 

We started a team blog where we wrote about things we would learn on projects and also about code experiments and code snippets. 

On lunch hour we played video games and played together which created a nice work environment where people (and myself) liked and enjoyed. 

We started off on a small room with the 6 of us and later moved to an open space. We worked most of the time on a project allocated to each of us where we collaborated with a PM, designer, QA, etc. We used trac to manage tickets and source control. I enjoyed working there. 

Working there had a feel good factor because it was in a University campus and also because of PR the company was always on the news which made us feel famous in a way. 

The culture was very informal to a point people would use flip flops to work and there was a team just doing R&D and developing stuff that we could re-use in client projects. Boy, those were the days. 

After a year working there and my internship was over I got offered a contract. The contract was to earn less than I was making during the internship which got me real angry and upset. I end into that meeting thinking how I would negotiate a good salary for myself and was shocked when I was told I would be actually earning less. According to the HR person this was quite normal and had to do with all the expenses the company now had to incur since they were no longer getting subsidies by the state to sponsor the internship. I said “Yes” to them externally but was screaming “No” inside. I went home that day and updated my CV and started posting it online everywhere I could find. Since my and Ana had talked about working abroad before I did something else too. I wrote on the CV that my address was in London (I think I used Spotify’s office address). I though that would sparkle the interest of companies in London and that they wouldn’t call someone that had an address in Lisbon. After two days I started getting phone calls from head hunters and booked two job interviews in London for the next weeks. 

I went to the interviews and both came back with a job offer (boy, those were the days). One was for central London and the other was for a job in a UK company but for a position in Darmstadt, Germany. 

The position was for a junior software engineer and to work as a contractor for the European Space Agency that has it’s operations center there. I decided for this position because I figured the European Space Agency must have a lot of resources and super technology and smart people would be there and it would be fun and exciting to work.

I took the job and moved to Germany the next month. Ana would also quit and start looking for job offers there meanwhile. 

Have great looking professional design

I was once waiting for the subway in the London underground when I saw an ad that caught my eye. The ad was  basically just copy but the way it was written and the message really stroke a chord with me. The ad read:

“Since the beginning of the times we used rings to define who we are. Our philosophy, model, beliefs and product. It told stories about ourselves. Our individuality, our uniqueness.

Rings were never about decoration. They were statements of who we were. 

And then we stopped creating it for ourselves. We started buying off the shelf.

It was no longer our story. Being online on the same day became more important than what we were going to say and provide on the website. 

I believe a website isn’t just a website. It should be your mark on the Internet, how you came together and fell in love with your work. A story that can be handed down.

How can you do this? Work with design professionals to capture the details in a website that celebrates your uniqueness. A website no one else on the Web will have alike. “

My thought after reading this was how it perfectly it applies to website design. 

With the growing myriad of templates and off-the-shelf products and services being advertised to us it is easy to start thinking why should we invest in professional design when we can, at least in theory, get the same result with less money or even for free.

Hiring a professional on-line presence that generates results

The difference between hiring professionals to work on your branding and website from other people is really simple. The professionals have done it multiple times before with success. The others have not. 

No one wants to pay more than necessary for a service or a product that solves their needs. I mean why would you want to pay more if you can get it for a fraction of the cost and time? 

The question is when we go to the market and consider different companies we tend to think that they are all created equal. They are not. A small agency is different from a big agency. WordPress is different than Magento and Drupal. And award winning professionals are different to work with than people that are starting out. 

Steve Jobs, when he was building out Next, payed a hundred thousand dollars for a logo. Why? Because he wanted something that was different from everything else on the market. That would reflect the brand and business he was setting out to build.

The only way to look professional is to work with professionals. 

The only way to build great design is to hire great designers. 

Be willing to invest. That investment should aim to produce a result that will significantly increase the gap between you and your competitors. At the end of the day people want to work with the winning team and the way to judge who is winning from the outside is through design, story branding and marketing. 

I see many clients choosing a supplier based on price and platforms without asking to see what success stories the company can show.

With tools like WordPress.com, Squarespace and Wix people tend to believe they can just go on-line, create a beautiful website in minutes and that will be it. Unfortunately, although it is true that you can use such tools to produce and publish something online fairly quickly, the truth is that in order to create something meaningful and disruptive to the market, i.e. that customers love, that generates business transactions and is a real pleasure to use, requires us to go through a series of disciplines rather than point and click tools.  

But Nuno, I don’t want to pay thousand of dollars to an agency to create my business website – you say. 

Do you want to be a market leader?

Do you want to have a world class marketing system?

Do you want to be perceive as the best in your industry, become highly valued and payed accordingly?

Then you have to do what the market leader does.

You have to work at world class level. 

You have to aim to disrupt your industry, influence it and deliver value like no other player will do. 

 It’s funny that if you search for the key steps for building a website online you find generic tactical steps like “choose a domain name”, “pick a hosting company”, “create content”, etc. 

In fact there seems to be no single methodology to create a website that 1) is meaningful and disruptive to the market, 2) customers love and generates business. 

The only pattern we see is that they hired professionals.

The 4 stages of a website design

Joana Galvão, from GIF Design Studios, establishes a website has 4 stages: Beginner, Bootstrapped, Beautified and Branded & Bespoke.

Beginner/Brochure/Business card website – This is your first iteration of your website. Your aim has been to have some sort of online presence.

Bootstrapped/Self-made – you need to invest a lot of time to learn a whole set of new skills to build a website. 

Beautified – you got a designed to create a logo, put together fonts and your colour scheme, had professional photos done, hired a copywriter and then finally a web designer or developer to put it all together online. 

Branded & Bespoke – your website is a powerhouse. It’s on everyone’s list of “I want my website to look like [insert your name here]”. It creates a wow effect when people land on it, which gets their undivided attention. 

At what level do you want to play?

Branded & Bespoke

Beautified

Bootstrapped

Beginner ?

People are making snap judgements about you and the VALUE that your brand represents before you get a chance to talk to them. – Joana Galvão, GIF Design Studios

Clients will make their first impression by browsing your website and will immediately create a story inside their heads. That story can be a number of things: 

“This is nicely designed”

“This is a template”

“This looks professional”

“This is stock photo”

“This looks cheap”

“This looks useful.”

“This looks exquisite.”

Etc.

Our years of experience have taught us that a website shouldn’t be about compromise. Created using the best design practices and standards and mobile-friendly our websites are exceptional crafted at a fair price.

Your company isn’t off-the-shelf, why should your website be? 

How to create a killer (professional, catchy, that brings in results, that puts me out there as a leader in my industry, world-class) website?

Do you think that is something the biggest brands and companies know? I doubt it. But the interesting thing is that they get there anyway. Do you ever wondered why Apple, Google, Facebook and others have interesting and compelling websites? If you think it’s because they have a lot of resources and money you would be right. But there is also another factor. The fact that they hire professional suppliers to help them out. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with throwing together a logo you or someone on your team created, a nice color-scheme and a bunch of words and pictures into a web page. But it is not going to look professional and premium. 

Does it pay off to hire professionals to do my website?

Design centred approach has become prime focus for any technology driven company, because good design can be a huge differentiation.

As the trend continues more and more industries turn to design centred approaches for better handling of customers and maintaining higher standards of service.

Good design is invisible. Even two years old can play with it.

Hire a professional award-winning Web Design boutique.

Be willing to make the necessary investment.