13 Mar 2015
in general the report found that young and educated people are attracted to Portland because it’s a 'place where people come to live, recreate, and do business—differently.'
There isn't a week that goes by that I don't wonder if I would have been able to help build a company like Planet Argon in another city. There's something in the water here.
5 Feb 2015
A short story about how a seemingly harmless blog post by the folks at 37signals may have impacted the future of Planet Argon…or maybe it didn’t.
12 Mar 2014
Recently in the Harvard Business Review, Wyatt Jenkins of Shutterstock shares some thoughts on how their product benefits from experimentation.
5 Mar 2014
Once leadership was all about planting your flag on the summit and standing heroically for a photograph. Now the leader is the one pacing anxiously at base camp waiting to hear good news.
Really enjoying this book, which was recommended to me by Dan Saffer a while back.
3 Sep 2013
We are on a mission to help six Portland area non-profit organizations before the end of 2013.
30 Aug 2013
Are you looking to a hire a web agency? Consider asking them these questions before you make a decision.
29 Aug 2013
2005 — the year we went from a freelancer company to an agency.
28 Aug 2013
There is a tendency to reduce the MVP to something so small it cannot it cannot be evaluated by the market you seek. Or worse, it’s misvalued.
28 Aug 2013
Wow. This is a game changer for small retail shops that sell their products online.
We’ve spoken to several companies over the past several years about their frustrations with maintaining a single inventory across two platforms (physical and online). Many of these stores were stuck on some custom eCommerce tool that a freelance developer built them several years ago. They weren’t being updated (with security patches, newer Rails releases)… the original developer is long gone and are faced with the scenario of having to hire a team like us to upgrade and improve their site.
In many of these scenarios, we have highlighted that services like Shopify are likely to be a better investment going forward. Just because they’ve invested thousands and thousands into an existing custom platform doesn’t mean they should continue to. While we live and breath off of designing applications and writing code… we don’t want to see anyone waste their money. In many scenarios, the POS was completely disconnected… and we’ve met many shops that are dealing with a QuickBooks inventory and have all these duplicate steps in their process.
I’m really glad to see that Shopify stepped up and went straight down to the retail level. This should alleviate a lot of pain for the small retail shops.
5 Aug 2013
There are queues everywhere. Do you know an entrepreneur-wannabe who is on his sixth or twelfth new project? He jumps from one to another, and every time he hits an obstacle, he switches to a new, easier, better opportunity. And while he’s a seeker, he’s never going to get anywhere.
As we near our 11th anniversary, I can definitely think of a few former clients that fit this profile. It's something we try to spot in potential projects now (and avoid, if possible). We aren't here to build pet projects. We're here to help you build a business. It's going to be difficult. We know what it'll take. We know how to put in the hard work... especially when it's not as easy as anyone hoped (it never is). Do *you* have what it takes?
Have a project that needs help?