Today we’d like to introduce you to Wendy Place.
Hi Wendy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We started Vivid Vector in 2021, when my twin boys were 15 and my daughter was 18 and the boys were looking to start their first jobs. However, we were still in the middle of COVID, so we talked about what the boys might enjoy learning. We decided that website development and SEO would be a great opportunity to learn together, since this wasn’t completely new territory for me and my husband, Kurt.
Kurt has been a programmer and website developer for 30 years, and I’ve helped build my own websites over the years. However, Kurt had no experience working with website-building platforms, so he was initially brought in as our backup when we needed custom coding. Our main goal at first was simple: learn, grow, and make happy customers.
Our first real project came through a friend who needed to move her website from Squarespace to Shopify. We agreed to take on the project for $300, knowing we would have to learn A LOT along the way. That project became our introduction to website development platforms and, eventually, the beginning of Vivid Vector.
There are two things in particular that we feel set us apart.
The first is SEO. We kept seeing that almost every website “glow-up” we took on had little to no SEO set up. It seems that many website developers treat SEO as an “add-on” feature, while clients often don’t want to pay extra for it. But my thought was, “Why create a beautiful website when no one is going to be able to find it?”
So, one of our first decisions was to build SEO into every website we take on. We don’t want SEO to be an afterthought. We believe it should be part of the foundation of every website.
The second feature that sets us apart is that we train our clients to use their websites. Before handing over a finished site, we create custom, simple videos that show them how to make basic changes to their pages. From managing their SEO, reading basic SEO reports, setting up products and categories, changing photos to contacting customer service, and more.
Some clients may never want to do these things themselves and will continue to pay us for our time, and we’re happy to help. But many have employees who are perfectly capable of handling these tasks as they arise. We want to set our clients up for success and give them the knowledge and tools they need to feel confident managing their websites.
From the beginning, we’ve made a habit of saying yes to opportunities that give us a chance to learn something new. What started as a way to learn alongside my kids has grown into a business that has brought us a tremendous amount of joy.
Today, Aaron and I primarily focus on website development and SEO, while Isaac has grown his own photography and drone business. Vivid Vector has become much more than the little $300 project that started it all. It’s become a family venture built around learning, creativity, and the willingness to try something new.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We started with four teenagers working in the business, so you can imagine there were a few hiccups along the way! But honestly, I was extremely pleased with how invested everyone was in learning their craft.
In the beginning, the girls took on the graphic design work, social media content, and logo design. They did a fantastic job and learned so much along the way. The boys, meanwhile, dove into website development and learned an incredible number of platforms, including Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Weebly, Drupal, and even custom hosting platforms.
I would say one of our biggest challenges during those first few years was that nearly every project felt like starting from scratch. We were constantly learning new platforms, figuring out their limitations, and discovering how to customize each one to meet our clients’ needs. It was a tremendous learning curve, but it also gave us a much broader understanding of website development and the different solutions available to our clients.
Looking back, all that trial and error certainly paid off. We’ve each discovered our own strengths and found our niche within the company. It’s also given the boys the confidence and experience to branch out and land their own projects. What initially felt a bit overwhelming has ultimately become one of the most rewarding parts of building this business with my kids.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Vivid Vector is a family-run website development and SEO business, and what we really specialize in is helping businesses create websites that are not only beautiful, but actually work for them.
We work with a variety of businesses and platforms, and because of the way we started, we’ve never been afraid to learn something new. That has allowed us to become very adaptable and to find the areas where each member of our family excels. Today, Aaron and I primarily focus on website development and SEO, while Isaac has built his own photography and drone business.
One of the things I’m most proud of is that we work almost exclusively through referrals. We don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to convince people to work with us because our existing clients recommend us to their friends, colleagues, and other business owners. There is something incredibly rewarding about having a client say, “You need to talk to Vivid Vector,” and knowing that the relationship we’ve built with them has led them to trust us enough to make that recommendation.
I think that also says a lot about what sets us apart. We genuinely care about our clients and want them to succeed, not just trying to get their website launched and moving on to the next project. We take the time to understand their business, teach them how their website works, and help them understand the SEO side of things. We want our clients to feel like they have a partner they can call when they have a question, rather than just a person who built their website.
One thing we hear far too often from new clients is that they have been “ghosted” by their previous website designer. They’ve had a website built, only to find that when they need a change, have a question, or run into a problem, the person who built it is suddenly nowhere to be found. We never want our clients to feel that way. Building a website is just the beginning of the relationship for us. We want our clients to know that we’re still here when they need us six months, two years, or even several years down the road.
I’m also proud that we’ve been able to turn something that started as a learning experience with our kids into a real family business. We’ve each found our own strengths and specialties, but we still have the opportunity to learn from one another. That’s probably what I’m most proud of: Vivid Vector isn’t just a business we built, it’s something we built together as a family and helped launch our children to their careers.
For us, success isn’t simply the number of websites we’ve launched. It’s when a client is happy enough with our work that they tell someone else about us. That kind of growth means much more to me than anything we could accomplish through advertising.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
The best advice I could give someone starting a business is to read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. The book uses the story of Sarah, a baker who dreams of opening her own bakery. Every business owner needs to understand the difference between being the Technician, the Manager, and the Entrepreneur.
The Technician is the person who knows how to do the work. The Manager creates the systems and keeps the business organized. The Entrepreneur looks at the bigger picture and thinks about where the business is going. One person may have to wear all three hats, especially when starting out, but recognizing which role you’re in and which roles are your strengths or weaknesses, is incredibly important.
It is impossible to know your strengths and just as importantly, your weaknesses, from the beginning. But try to learn these as soon as possible and then do the same of the people you plan to work with. Don’t assume that everyone will naturally know what their role should be. Define those roles, communicate them clearly, and make sure everyone understands how their piece contributes to the bigger picture.
And don’t stop learning. Invest in online courses. Watch YouTube videos. Read books. Find people who know more than you do. Whatever someone’s role is within the business, they should be continually learning about their piece of it. We try to make education part of our weekly development rather than something we only do when we run into a problem.
Starting a business means you’re going to have a lot to learn, and you won’t know what you don’t know, and that’s okay. The sooner you understand that running a business is different from simply being good at what you do, the smoother things will go. Learn your craft, learn the business, understand the people you’re working with, and keep learning as you grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vivid-vector.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VividVectorDesign
