5 lessons from being our own website design client

We just dealt with the worst client ever.

They were demanding, nitpicky, and constantly making crazy requests. And they ate all the food in our fridge.

I think you're getting the point - the client was ourselves.

Until now, we've operated with a single-page website that served us dutifully. It represented what we were back then, which was a bold, adventurous, and slightly naive team of hopefuls. It led to our first clients, and it even won a few awards. But it wasn't meant to be permanent, and we definitely outgrew it.

So, two months ago, we decided it was time to hunker down and turn ourselves into our own web client.

It was an enlightening experience, we'll say, and we wanted to share some takeaways with you. Maybe you'll benefit, or at least get a kick out of them.

Let's get into it.

Lesson 1: Strategy can rattle your business (and that's good)

What we tell clients: Discovery and strategy come first. Not visual identity, not moodboards, not even wireframes.

But what is strategy? At its core, it's just figuring out goals and how to achieve them.

To build a strategy, we engage you (the client) in a robust discovery process, including a questionnaire and live session where we hash out what's been working, what hasn't been working, who you speak to, long/near term goals, and more.

This process isn't just useful for us. You're in the trenches doing the work, with little time to zoom out and reflect. Our discovery becomes an opportunity for leaders like you to take a beat and review the big picture, which can yield interesting revelations.

The insights become the guiding force for every designed pixel moving forward.

What happened to us: We destroyed 50% of our services. Thanos-snapped 'em.

We looked at everything that brought us to this point. We realized that while people appreciated our range, the projects they kept coming back for were always websites, branding, and motion. We did enjoy working across a variety of formats, but it spread us thin, and we'd often think that we could be so much better at X if we had time to focus.

So, we're doing that.

The new site reflects our concentration on websites, branding, and motion, and I think it does a great job displaying our breadth of work within those scopes. You can check out the new service pages, where you can learn more about what we do, what you'd get, and even projections of timelines and cost. The pages answer questions we often receive, and help people understand whether or not we're a fit for them.

It's effectively replacing a chunk of our sales process, as leads coming from those pages will have already self-qualified. Wow. Strategy.

Lesson 2: Brevity is confidence. (Thanks, Axios)

What we tell clients: Nobody reads.

• Few word good, people read.

• Many word bad, people no read.

This is the inescapable truth, backed by heatmapping tests conducted by us and others. When people see a big block of copy, they skip it.

But reading effort isn't the only issue.

Over-explaining reads as insecurity.

It's like dancing with someone at a club and trying to verbally convince them you're hot. (Actually, that's funny. It could work.) But you get what I mean - they should know just from how you present yourself.

Ironically, I am taking a long time to make the point (but it's my blog, I can do what I want). What I'm getting at - to effectively communicate on a website, say less, show more.

In other words, say only what you need to, and use visuals whenever possible.

I love this quote from the Axios team: "Brevity is confidence." I could have just left it at that and you'd have gotten the point. But I feel like yapping, so you get what you get.

What happened to us: Practicing what we preach was hard.

Marc Feder (of Almost Always) taught me to always trim copy after the first draft. And then cut it down again, again, and again until you can't anymore. And then one more time after that.

With clients, we're not tempted to over-explain. We're not attached to their words, and we spend a lot of effort to distill their value into its most intuitive form. That all makes brevity achievable.

Doing this with ourselves was a different story.

It felt like looking in the mirror as a middle schooler, trying to figure out how people perceive you, but you start to realize you're an unreliable source and the cool hairstyle you're working on might actually be why you have no friends.

But we pushed through. Partly with brute force. I won't bore you with the play-by-play, but just know that the copy you're seeing on the site is probably 50% less than what we originally wrote.

Example:

• Before: "We're dedicated to providing outstanding client experiences that delight."

• After: "We provide great service."

Our old site was centered around the headline "Don't be boring." It was our rallying cry, and we still stand by it.

But if we return to the club analogy - saying you’re not boring is like telling people you’re hot. If it’s true, they should be able to tell.

So this time, we let the work say it for us. Luckily, the work is pretty good.

Lesson 3: Good things take time

What we tell clients: A good website will not materialize in a week, two weeks, or even a month.

Designing and developing a website properly takes time. We're talking 8-12 weeks for a standard corporate or marketing site.

We've had people ask "why can't you finish the site in one month?" Truthfully, we can (ask about our website sprints). But as typical web projects get underway, people discover why this requires time. Things like:

• Discovery + strategy

• Design iterations

• Turnaround time for feedback on every page

• Copywriting

• Sourcing content

• Designing for multiple breakpoints (desktop, ultrawide desktop, tablet, mobile)

• Developing the site

• Feedback again, but this time on a built preview

• QA testing and fixes

• Doing my laundry

Every step benefits from care, and shortcuts will always have drawbacks.

To be blunt - if you wanted a quick website, go ask Claude or Codex to do it for you. You'll have something functional in like 15 minutes.

But if you came to us for a site, then you obviously want it done well. And that does, and should, take time.

What happened to us: We thought we'd be done in a month. It took double that.

We thought we could knock this out quickly because the ideas would be our own, and we wouldn't be at the mercy of feedback from another party.

That was wrong.

It turns out nobody owns ideas. Ideas become their own entity when they're brought into the world, and they demand improvement.

So even as we came up with our own ideas, we'd find ourselves dissatisfied with the initial drafts, and had to keep revising until they felt right.

I don't have much else to say, I'm a broken record at this point. This stuff just takes time to plan, execute, and refine, and we were forced to accept that. It was worth it, though.

Lesson 4: Good work isn't noticeable

What we tell clients: Well, we actually don't tell them about this. Let's skip to our part and I'll explain.

*blah blah this is a dummy line so we don't have two bolded lines in a row*

What happened to us: We put a ton of work into what you don't see.

Web designers and developers are unsung heroes. One of the hallmarks of a great designer or developer is knowing what NOT to do, which is unfortunately something that you won't notice if they do it well. But they're constantly protecting you from bad decisions, like:

• Showboating design and interactions (great to show off, terrible for actual conversion and performance)

• Heavy media files

• Poor navigation

• Unoptimized code

• Unclear visual hierarchy

• Etc…

You get the idea.

To be real, our old site wasn't a mature product. We opted for scrolljacking, heavy media assets, interactive WebGL, and other choices that looked cool but hurt the user experience. We'd gambled on sacrificing a little performance for style. It did actually lead to some jobs because people liked the site (hooray), but we knew we didn't want to fall in the same trap this time.

So, we made the new site violently performant. 99/100 desktop and 96/100 mobile performance scores on Google Lighthouse speak for themselves. And our SEO/AEO and accessibility compliance are better than ever.

Under the hood, we've employed best practices along with modern tricks to squeeze performance out of every pixel, while still expressing the design flair we're known for. It's exciting, but also boring, because visitors won't be conscious of it. You'd certainly dislike a buggy site, or one that loads slowly, but you don't think about a site that loads and performs snappily.

I'm glad that I can brag about it in this blog, but this thing we spent so much time on is going to go completely unnoticed by most. Sad.

Lesson 5: Make people feel something

What we tell clients: Web and brand are not just about showing off metrics and specs and value propositions. They should evoke emotion.

Relief, delight, even nostalgia - feelings like these are well-utilized by consumer brands like Coke or Apple. So for those types, I'm preaching to the choir.

But emotion is an under-appreciated facet of B2B marketing.

Two examples I love are Linear and Slack.

Linear - one look at their product, and you'll have an impression of precision and efficiency, so you're understanding the sell before you read a single word.

Slack - everyone knows about this one. They burst onto the scene achieving the impossible: they made software feel fun. And that took them pretty far.

Companies like Linear and Slack correctly understand that buyers are not cold and logical, they are humans who feel emotions. And emotions drive action.

What happened to us: We injected our personality into the site (with restraint).

We actually over-indexed on personality in our first website.

It was a very "fun" site, with bold typography, colors, illustrations, and interactions. At the time, we'd posited that our personality would bring like-minded clientele to our door. That actually did happen.

But we didn't expect that our client base would mature so quickly. We'd anticipated working with early-stage startups and businesses, so our bold, youthful brand was meant to resonate with that crowd.

But one thing led to another, and we found ourselves also working with veteran, established companies who needed a trustworthy provider. So with this new site, we've taken the opportunity to grow up, if just a little.

We've pared back the big swings, but not to kill our personality. We're calmer this time around, reflecting the expertise and reliability people appreciate about us. But we're simultaneously a creative and friendly team, and we use those parts of us as accents, not as the main dish.

The intended result is a site that makes you feel… relief. Like you've finally found the design team you want to work with forever and ever.

In conclusion

We enjoyed being our own client. Or at least I did. Maybe some of the team is sick of me now. But as you can Hopefully you got something out of the lessons, too.

Best of all, we've gotten even better at what we do. By running ourselves through our own process, we've been able to essentially user-test our own service and sharpen it.

So, while we're excited about the site, and would love for you to browse around, we're already eagerly applying what we learned to client projects now. This is why I enjoy the work - every improvement is tangible.

I don't know who you are reading this, but if you are:

• A designer, dev, or strategist: Reach out to work with us if anything above resonated.

• Someone who needs the world to understand them (via web, brand, or motion): Hit us up. We want to help.

-Nate