Brian Forth introduced himself as the owner of SiteCrafting, and gave us a quick summary of what he did prior to starting his company. He went to Gonzaga on a baseball scholarship, after leaving another college. He majored in education and became a teacher. He taught the kids how to code and started having them build websites, which led to the building websites for the parents' employers in his off time for extra money. He started making really good money doing that, and eventually went into it full time and worked for a company.
When the .com bubble burst, Mr. Forth decided to start SiteCrafting and it's been around for 18 years now. The company does business building mobile apps, handling e-commerce, building websites among other things. Some of their clients includes Tacoma Public Utilities, the Tacoma Public Library, several transit companies, the Lemay car museum, and many others. Since starting the company, they have moved their office 3 times, and are now located next to exit 133 off of I-5.
A student asked how he picks his clients, and Mr. Forth explained that he is careful not to do business with too many clients in the same industry because he wants to ensure that his clients know that they are getting SiteCrafting's best. Sometimes a client will make an exclusive contract, and SiteCrafting will charge more money, and the contract will be for a guaranteed amount of time. All their contracts have a kill clause, and if the company cancels the contract because they decide to go in a different direction, they owe the rest of the money in the contract. He works hard to make sure his customers are happy, because 93% of the work they get is from word of mouth.
Mr. Forth recommended that everyone read "The Obstacle is the Way Forward". He then went on to talk about building applications for Deluxe, a company that does coloring for several large film companies including Dreamworks.
Mr. Forth said that he's always thinking of things to try and help the company. Part of being an entrepreneur means that weekends are rarely fully removed from thinking about work. He also mentioned that he doesn't let himself get too high in the good times or too low in the hard times.
When he started the company, he wore all the hats and has now hired people to do the things he's not good at or doesn't want to do. In the last year, they launched a separate company called GearLab which does user testing for companies, and they have high tech equipment including eye tracking and provide feedback for design decisions. Clients can watch the sessions remotely, as they occur. GearLab also compiles videos of the highlights of the user testing for clients. SiteCrafting does a lot of work with GearLab.
I asked Mr. Forth who his first client was, and he told me they made a website for North Coast Electric. The website they have now was not made by SiteCrafting, but they still manage their back end application. I also asked who their most exciting client was, for him personally. He first said any project where everyone comes together and cooperates to get the work done. He then said a company called APS came to them with a project that was 2 weeks from launch, and their programmer had given up on the project. In 11 days, they designed an app for a digiplayer, to be used on airplanes, and met the deadline.
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