good work empathetic pricing a path forward image
March 20th, 2020

Good work. Empathetic pricing. A path forward.

Kristen Angelucci
Executive Director of Story and Community

During a time like this (though - let’s be real - has there ever been a time exactly like this?) the line between life and work gets more blurry than ever before. We’re working from our homes, spouses, kids, pets and roommates popping up behind us during video calls. We’re logging off later, but taking longer lunch breaks to get outside or call our parents.

Yesterday morning, I had a call with our CCO, Matt Goold, and CEO, Anthony Robinson. My daughter played in the background. Anthony’s son popped up, cheerful as ever in a knit Mickey Mouse cap, blissfully unaware of whatever tensions we were carrying. Matt thought of his daughters, upstairs with his wife, and sighed. “They don’t deserve this.” 

Away from friends and family, mostly indoors, their parents in front of laptops for most of the day, the future for our kids was uncertain. That was bad enough. But we also worried about the things that might not be there when all this ended - the things so near and dear to our families. The tiny book stores. The museums. The music classes. The businesses held together by love, determination, and community. How could we explain to our children if, after all their patient waiting, the world they emerged into was suddenly missing so much of the magic we’d cherished as families before? It didn’t seem fair. We were buying local takeout and stockpiling gift cards and yet, we were sure that we could do more, as people and as a company. 

 “We’ve always been digital,” Anthony said, “that’s the thing. We get it. But for some businesses, this is all such an adjustment.” The thought got us talking. And the more we talked, the more it became obvious what we - and other businesses in the digital space - could invest in that future.

Good work. Empathetic pricing. A path forward. 

So many of our favorite local businesses didn’t have much need for a real web presence a month ago, aside from posting their hours or upcoming events. Their websites were digital business cards. Now they’re using them in new and more complex ways, and stretching themselves - and their technology - thin. We’ve been doing this for 15 years. We want to help. 

If you’ve always done things yourself and suddenly need your website to do far more than you ever anticipated, talk to us. If you’ve never seen the need for a website but now have no foot traffic, talk to us. We can’t promise to take on all of the work we know is out there - we, of course, have standing commitments to current, amazing, clients. If we can’t do it, we’ll try to help you find someone who can. What we can promise, however, is that we’ll make time to hear you out, and, if we can manage the work, do it as quickly as we can manage, and we’ll try our very best to work with your budget. Fast turn-arounds usually come at a premium, and there’s good reason for that; they require a lot of juggling and planning. We know there could be large profit-margins for businesses capitalizing on tragedy, but we’re promising to be better than that, and we think our industry can be too. Our specialty is creating an accessible, well-researched web presence that anyone can use, and we know how sorely needed those skills are in this moment, so we intend to use them. We want to make things that will serve you for the coming months, but also for the coming years.

We’re doing this because we want to. Because if we’re going to be in our homes for who-knows-how-long, we not only want our bookstores, museums and music classes to be there when we’re done, we want our children to experience them now, even if that experience is different. And we want our parents, who might not own smartphones or use apps, to be able to use their local banks, and get that tea they like, and maybe even, somehow, still have a date night. We have dreams for our families, and ourselves, and those dreams have not ended. Those dreams rely on local businesses. Schools. Non-profits. You.

The digital space is our home. If you’re new here, welcome. Let’s get you settled in.

Kristen Angelucci
Executive Director of Story and Community