By Jared White / October 4th, 2011
Siteshine, along with its sister company North Bay Startup, recently moved into our brand new office at 500 North Main Street in downtown Sebastopol, CA. It’s a shared co-working space run by Sebastopol Entrepreneurs Project, an initiative sponsored by the Sebastopol City Council that is geared towards supporting new startups and entrepreneurs (hence the name).
We are very excited to be here! Not only is it a cool office space to work in, but we’re pleased to be supporting the efforts of SEP to spur innovation and grassroots business development in the local economy. That’s what Siteshine is all about! Give us a heads up some time and stop by to say Hi or talk shop. We always welcome visitors!
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By Jared White / August 26th, 2011
Another website done and live! We are super thrilled to be the launch partner for First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa. In spring of 2011, Dale, the lead pastor and Leigh, the communications coordinator for FPC contacted Siteshine and invited us to bid on FPC’s extensive website redesign effort. We were pleased to be selected for the project and are very happy with the results!
From FPC’s purpose page: “OUR MISSION STATEMENT: Submitting ourselves to the claims of Jesus Christ, together we seek to honor him, embody his presence and proclaim his gospel with authenticity, humility, and love.”
Visit the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa website »
Note: Armed with FPC’s logo by Zelaya Designs, Siteshine designed and developed a fully-custom WordPress theme.
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By Jared White / July 27th, 2011
Siteshine is pleased to announce our latest client project has just gone live! Arousing Success is the website for Dr. Jeannie LeMesurier, a clinical psychologist, life coach and motivational speaker. Her training in both psychology and life coaching is extensive, and in addition she is a graduate of Jack Canfield’s elite Train the Trainers Program (yes, that Jack Canfield, of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame).
Check out her brand new website, and if you are looking for success in life in both the personal or business arenas, talk to Dr. Jeannie.
Note: Siteshine was provided a style guide and background and built out the rest of the site design and navigation by creating a fully-custom WordPress theme.
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By Jared White / June 16th, 2011
From 10 Ways for Entrepreneurs and Startups to Research for Success on North Bay Startup:
Research, research, research! If there’s anything I’ve learned in years of doing business, it’s this: you can’t be too well-informed, but you can certainly be ill-informed!
Many experts will tell you that your main focus when thinking of starting a business should be to write a business plan, which in many cases consists of meticulous number crunching and analysis of your competition. Balderdash! I subscribe to the 37signals’ “Rework” philosophy that planning is guessing, so that’s a whole lot of work based on a whole lot of guessing. And reality trumps guessing every time.
So what do I mean when I talk about research? Here’s what I mean:
Research your community and your world!
In the fine blogging tradition of posting lists, here’s my Top 10 list of what you should do as you conduct research for your startup…
Read the full article here.
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By Jared White / May 31st, 2011
Jared White, Siteshine’s Creative Director, recently developed an online TV show called North Bay Startup. As the principal sponsor of North Bay Startup in its infancy, we’re excited about the show format and the inroads it’s making to boost the profile of the startup scene in the North Bay (aka north of San Francisco; Sonoma, Marin, and Napa counties).
In NBS’ last episode 3, Jared discussed how he’s handling the issue of journalistic integrity and making sure Siteshine or any other sponsor of North Bay Startup isn’t adversely effecting how the show covers businesses. For example, one of Siteshine’s direct competitors was profiled in Episode 2, and other companies that work with competitors of Siteshine may be profiled in the future. From our standpoint, we believe that the value of the show and the benefits it brings to the local business community outweigh any downside of highlighting competition, and in fact may help promote us in a positive way regardless.
We hope you go over to North Bay Startup and check out what Jared’s been up to. If you yourself are a startup or entrepreneur (or are with a company that works with them routinely), you should get ahold of Jared and let him know about yourself. All feedback submitted to the show is taken seriously, so don’t hold back!
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By Jared White / April 27th, 2011
Found this article on Mashable about a social media marketing report that claims that social media has little to no effect on how consumers shop online. If you believe the report, you can be an online retailer with the coolest, most engaging, most enticing, most informative Facebook and Twitter accounts in the world, and it won’t amount to a hill of beans.
I say balderdash! (Read my comments on the article here.) I know from personal experience, not to mention plenty of other research I’ve done, that says otherwise. Social media won’t often lead to getting new customers or leads, but it’s one of the most powerful bang-for-the-buck ways to build brand loyalty and provide great customer service. And what business on earth doesn’t want to build brand loyalty and provide great customer service? It’s almost a no-brainer, which is why a report like this just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Retailer: I may find you on Google or through an ad somewhere. But if you want to keep my attention over the long haul: you need to communicate with me! And social media is your best way to make me like you. Tell me a story. Show me what you care about. Get me excited about something new. Engage!
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By Jared White / April 11th, 2011
Heads up, the North Bay Web Design Conference is tomorrow! I will be a featured speaker presenting on mobile design and development. Not native app development, but using web technologies (HTML5/CSS3/jQuery/etc.). If you’re into iPhone, iPad, Android, and the rest of the latest generation mobile platforms, this topic is going to rock.
There are only a very few tickets left, so if you want to come, hurry up and register for the first-ever North Bay Web Design Conference!
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By Jared White / March 18th, 2011
My editorial “When to Walk Away” got published at Visual Swirl, a top resource site for designers and freelancers. It’s wisdom born from a lot of personal experience, and I’m pleased to put it out there in hopes you might benefit. Excerpt:
Nobody likes to be ill-treated, right? And yet in the midst of negotiating a deal, whether with a potential client or partner, it’s likely that sometimes things will get a bit heated. You may not be able to provide the services in the time frame and at the price that the other party is expecting. You may feel like they are insulting your professional integrity.
This is not the time to walk away from a deal, not yet. Keep your cool, and take this opportunity to explain in detail how your business works, why your pricing has to remain where it is, and why it takes a certain length of time to do the work. On that last point in particular, we freelancers know we’re constantly having to juggle several projects at once. Explain that if you were to do the work faster and give them your exclusive time, it would harm your ability to provide services to existing clients as well as other important leads.
Read the entire article here.
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By Jared White / March 8th, 2011
I am honored to be speaking at the upcoming, inaugural conference for the web design industry based in the North San Francisco Bay. As the site says, we’ve all had to go to San Francisco, or further, for web conferences, but no longer!
My presentation is titled From Clicks to Gestures: Developing for a Mobile, Touch-based World, and I will be sharing about the four key areas that web designers and product managers must focus on as they prepare sites and applications for mobile touch-based devices. If that floats your boat, mark your calendar for April 12, 2011 and register for the first-ever North Bay Web Design Conference!
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By Jared White / March 3rd, 2011
We’re pleased to announce our latest client project is now on the web! This was a really, really fun project for us to work on and posed some interesting engineering challenges. Read more about it on our Portfolio, and then check out the new DJ Dax Online.
From our writeup:
DJ Dax is a phenomenally successful DJ based in Sonoma County, California. He has provided services at such prestigious venues as Francis Ford Coppola winery, Sonoma State University, Mary Agatha Furth Center, Hyatt Vineyard Creek, and Kenwood Farms & Gardens. From weddings to corporate events, from school dances to sports team celebrations, DJ Dax can do it all. When looking at his client list and testimonials, DJ Dax’s professionalism speaks for itself.
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