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Client Testimonials
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“Many compliments and contacts and sales due to the website!”
J & P
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“The site looks wonderful. Still in awe. I feel so…awesome!”
Samuel E. Cole – Author
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Thank you ever so much for your creative contributions to us this year!
“You were the wind beneath our wings to recover our community.”
The Marin Open Studios Board
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“Thank you so much for your support, flexibility, patience & tenacity!”
S.
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Overall I would say this website we built got my whole coaching practice launched…I earned more from coaching last year than I was making at my day job and now have quit to do this full time so life is very good and I feel very very grateful for the shape life is taking.
You were instrumental in being part of making that possible so thank you so much for that!
A. Frank – Conscious Uncoupling Coach
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“…it feels so wonderful to have this beautiful web site (giving me a great sense of confidence as I hand out my business cards!)”
C. Pabo – Founder, Humanity 2050
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Wendy and her whole team at Future Bright are wonderful! We’ve been using Future Bright since 2012 and would never think of changing! Wendy or one of her staff are always quick to assist us with with our questions and concerns. In our one-on-one meetings with Wendy, we’ve always been amazed at her numerous great tips she has for our webpage, admin rules and email names. Before we worked with Wendy our business was not taken seriously. After working with Wendy, we’ve gone on to form partnerships with the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, Walmart, Volkswagon, GoPro… What a difference a great webpage can make! Thanks again Future Bright for helping us change the world!
Holly Hill Hummingbird Urban Teaching Farm
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I absolutely love this website, you guys did an amazing job!
Rebecca
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Heartaches
Special Notes From Our Founder Wendy Louise Nog
Sometimes things go awry. Rather than only share the good times, I wanted to also be transparent and share some of the heartaches. Over my many years of experience, there have only been a few projects that completely melted down, and they still sometimes wake me up at night. Many clients have come to us from other very experienced developers with stories of heartache, so we know that it is not necessarily the skill set of a developer that is the cause of the melt-down, but often it is a miss-match in communication styles or expectations. This is an ongoing challenge in this industry, and you can sense a shift in the direction of a project immediately when communication and trust break down. We want to share some of our own heartaches so that you can take these lessons and learn from them, as we did.
The Never Ending Project
With every project, the client’s loyalty is to their brand, the developer’s loyalty is to the code, and the designer’s loyalty is to how everything looks. When all three of these loyalties are combined, magic happens. When there are long delays however, finger-pointing begins and the project becomes a hot potato within the agency, and within the client’s team, and gaps begin to appear. Designers and developers are human beings, and when a project is drawn out for a very long time, fatigue sets in, and also as other projects have come in the door, memory of the construction of the code and site begin to fade. A typical website development project should take 3-4 months. We have had two such projects draw out to more than a year. One was due to the organization going through four leadership changes. Another was a series of internal events that made it necessary for them to stop and start three times. If there are circumstances within your company that are going to cause a delay, it is best for the relationship and quality of the project to have an official pause, and when you are ready, an official re-start.
Communication Styles Don’t Match
If you are an artist or have a creative mind and have an aversion to technology, the process of creating a website is incredibly emotional. We created a chart called “The Emotional Side Of Website Development” to help our clients understand that their experience will be based on their style of brain. Creatives have the most emotional rollercoaster ride. If you are this type of person, it is imperative that you have absolute confidence and trust in the developer that you choose. This is because there will be many moments in the process where you totally lose control, and the visual aspects of the site are very far from their end form. If you trust your developer, then you will have confidence that they will pull through for you in the end. You need to feel that your developer listens, and understands you. You may be trying to describe what you need in extremely non-technical terms, and trust that your developer will be able to interpret your words into a technical solution.
Scope Creep
You may wonder if developers have a goal of continuously adding to the cost of the project from the outset. What we have found in our own experience, and in conversations with our colleagues, is that we get most of our projects through referrals from previous clients. This means that our primary goal is the success of the project and the happiness of our client. Adding cost to a project is never a goal. When a client identifies a new feature that they realize they would love, and often it is a very good idea, the opportunity for friction arises. The developer wants the client to be happy, so has to choose between asking for additional funds, thus risking the relationship with the client, or absorbing the cost, which directly reduces the team’s income, which also risks the relationship. New ideas always arise during the execution of a project. This is a historical fact. The management of those new ideas is critical not only for the relationship, but for the cost, the timeline, and the quality of the end product. It is good to keep running “Must”, “May”, and “Wish” lists. A project estimate is created at the beginning of a project, when little is known, and so much discovery is ahead. To reduce stress, it is good to add 20% to the budget for features that are added as the project unfolds. This budget can be set aside and dipped into, or not touched.
Devil’s Advocate In Client’s Ear
This has happened twice, one project we pushed through to completion, and the other we lost. In both cases there was someone who had the client’s ear who was creating doubt. I will be very clear about this, there is a tendency with many developers to trash each other. There also does seem to be a particular gender that is most guilty of this, and it is not the female gender. It is good to have an advocate on your team, it is important that you are selective in who you choose to share the project with. It should be someone who is focused on success and solutions, not someone who relishes the failure of others. We all know people like that. Keep them away from your project. The best outside person to share your project with is someone who has uncanny attention to detail, and who has your success as their vision. We understand that communication and trust are critical.