Wellness Partners PLLC is a health collective based in Boise ID, the woman owned business is a strong, improvement encouraging, good vibe place all around. Crista is a pleasure to work with, as she has an array of passion and enthusiasm for her craft. They offer personalized physical training, massages for recovery, mental health therapy such as therapy, and then yoga for a clear mind and stronger muscles.
Working with Carter was really smooth, kind of a breath of fresh air because I am not a website manager or anything of sorts. I just connected with him, paid his price, and then he took creative control and structure initiative. He took care of things I didn't even know were things to consider.
Starting originally with just a landing page that was left incomplete from another freelancer, I rebuilt the whole thing while keeping the brand's aesthetics and implementing some smooth interactive animations.
Plants Planted is a cool little e-shop from NYC, operating out of a two story loft, Dennis grows microgreens, makes custom plant holders, builds grow shelfs, selecting hydroponic machines to sell, and other things. Beyond just selling products, he curates a unique earthy energy that brings his love for plants into every aspect of your home, ensuring his customers not only find what they need but also feel inspired to create their own green spaces with ease and confidence.
Carter has has a really thorough experience. You can tell he's been around for quite a while. He does all the things of which I had no clue go into this. I mean, I thought it was just a store, but he flipped every un-turned stone and got me set up for success. He did everything. I mean everything. Branding (Logo, color kit, font kit). Design. Development. Copywriting. Testing. Payment gateway integration. Third-party App integration (For reviews). Product image editing. Price uploading. Shipping zone set up. SEO. Social media share graphs. Social media integration. Mobile responsiveness. Domain connection. He literally did it all and because I needed the whole one on one education, he sat down for e-meetings to instruct me on everything. $7500 well spent, would and will hire him again, have already sent him a referral which I know went through!
This project was a little slow but really thorough, due to the founder, Dennis seeking to have more of a hands-on experience while I crafted elements, Dennis wanted to know every thing possible of a e-commerce store, which I didn't mind sharing with him. This was a 80 hour project with 50 of them being meetings. Starting from scratch, I built a V1 site, I had him market and run tests for about a month, then rejoiced to built a V2 site (as shown), after gathering the feedback from his people, family, friends, peers, and customers, I rebuilt the store to increase engagement more.
Cup Corner is a cozy, curated coffee shop nestled in the heart of Amsterdam. Known for its expertly crafted brews and handpicked beans sourced from around the globe, it’s a haven for coffee lovers seeking quality and community. With its cozy atmosphere and attention to detail noting that most people will just be picking up their cups off the corner counter, Cup Corner doesn’t just serve coffee, it serves an experience, blending the art of brewing with the charm of Amsterdam’s vibrant café culture.
Carter freaking crushed this, essentially I was worried about the whole thing, for some reason it's overwhelming to me. Carter took care of everything from A to Z, he built out everything, sent & met up with me for feedback, then updated improvements.
He did all of our assets and then walked me through all the maintenance things of Webflow. He was really great and just was a pleasure to work with. I think him taking care of the whole thing made me realize just how much goes into this and him taking care of it really got rid of that overwhelming thing for me.
Working within a tight budget and a tight deadline weren't ideal for me, they also provided low quality content which I had to spend some time touching up. While it was just a landing page build, there were around 100 small elements that required exporting and various animations set up. This was a $1.5K project which I don't offer anymore.
The guys at Hal&Al are one of a kind. Operating out of two state-of-the-art facilities, Hal&Al Meats specializes in premium, ethically sourced cuts that cater to a variety of chefs, tastes, and cuisines. Known for their dedication to quality and craftsmanship, they pride themselves on hand-selecting and delivering each product to perfection. Whether it’s specialty sausages, custom cuts of wagyu, or gourmet pre-marinated meats, they’re bringing exceptional meats with a strong commitment to sustainability and transparency.
Carter really helped me in a time of need, my business was getting overwhelmed with orders that had no meaning, no lifetime customer value after the first purchase. So when he took a step back, revisioned, realigned, and then rebuilt, he did it really well. I already had a ton of Shopify experience and so there wasn't any sort of meetings, I just paid him on his terms and he got to work, much quicker than I imagined too.
While analyzing customer analytics, I identified a missed opportunity to boost conversion rates and customer lifetime value. The data revealed frequent repeat purchases of one or two products, just outside of a regular monthly schedule. However, there was no subscription model to encourage consistency or incentivize larger purchases. From there, on the front-end, the brand's bold color palette, the black, white, and red, was visually strong, there were no call-to-action buttons on any featured products on the home page, limiting customer engagement and driving missed conversions. Additionally, the product descriptions lacked clarity in design, and persuasive language, failing to communicate the unique value of the products or encourage upselling opportunities. This, combined with an inconsistent navigation flow, made the user journey less intuitive, ultimately impacting the overall shopping experience.
Becker General is one of Los Angeles' oldest construction companies. With four generations of brainstorming, blueprinting, and building, Becker General is streamlined for its clients' success. Their legacy of craftsmanship is matched by a forward-thinking approach, ensuring every project is completed with precision and innovation.
This is my third time working with Carter on my family's business, we're one of the longest operating construction firms in L.A, we've been working with Carter for years now, he helped us with branding way back when, and then when we were ready we had him build our site. He listened to what concepts I had and kind of propelled them or fit them better, he put pen to paper.
Working with the Beckers is always good, I'm friends with Adam the son, and him and I go way back from a conference. I've done various works for them, from editing video and images to meta ad's creation, some print media works, and then lastly their website. I think the only challenge here was as per usual they are a little back and fourth on their decision making but that's normal.
UC3 studios is an awesome, awesome 3D printing home goods & decor store. I actually bought a couple of their lighting fixtures to give to my sisters and friends as gifts. They melt and reuse plastics to build cool objects you'd find around a cool pad. They set such a good vibe in your place, it's really hard to look at other home accessories the same way after seeing and owning one of theirs.
I hired Carter to kind of bridge our business concept to our audience. I somewhat have a hard time with pitching & verbiage. I had no clue what all I was looking for, but Carter did great. I wanted something that was a little more complex than what Shopify could do natively, and he built a strong solution that's seamless. I've really enjoyed the experience and the often small little 1 off things I hit him up to do occasionally.
Moving from a very barebones concept just off some notes, essentially I connected with the business due to it's sustainability ethics, and really built something that would connect genuinely with their targeted audience. Something that maybe to note as a challenge was expected turn around time and lack of budget, although I did get my regular price paid, it was more than his budget so I had to do some work around payments, all and all it was a smooth build out.
Calm Caterpillar is an emotional regulation company dedicated to helping children and parents navigate the challenges of growing families. They create products designed to help kids connect with, understand, and regulate their emotions, providing valuable tools for emotional growth and family well-being.
Having Carter rebuild our Shopify store was the best thing I've done for my business in a long time. While working with limited resources, he was able to totally transform our Shopify store. His expertise, attention to detail, and past e-commerce management experience made him a superstar, turning our online presence into a seamless, high-performing store that drives purchases.
Starting off, there were a lot of design elements that just lacked. Images and product images were blurry, poor quality copywriting, not a whole lot of interaction between them and I (They almost went ghost after paying the first initial deposit, I spent two weeks waiting on them to get back to me), and some other things. Though it wasn't a bad experience, it was just a little dragged out and there were a lot of missing elements I had to fill in the blanks on. I think they hired an agency after me to manage their site.
Key Construction builds with care, ensuring safety for every project while earning the trust of clients through dependable service and expert craftsmanship. Focused on maintaining the highest standards of safety, they prioritize the well-being of both their team and clients throughout the construction process. With a reputation built on reliability and attention to detail, Key Construction delivers quality results that clients can count on, every time.
We hired Carter to build our entire site and the experience was none than other, beyond our expectations.
This client was great, they came to me with all things necessary but 1 which was a clean logo file, which was easy enough for me to rework and export. They had their portfolio well built which was super helpful, I did some minor video/image editing to get it aligned for web use.
RekoNow brings local communities together, by connecting farmers with customers as a digital farmers market, you can order everything from meats to treats, vegetables and bread, RekoNow is empowering homestead style communities.
Would give 4/5 stars, I had asked him to design our landing page, which he did, but I was under the assumption that I was also getting the code, hosting, and the domain for it too, that wasn't the case, and when he tried to align and reset expectations with me, he tried to charge me more. I had him do three revisions and our old one was just a screen shot of what the app was. I think it would've been better if he would've given me everything.
Working within a budget was tough, no resources, no copywriting, no briefing, and a very tight and strict deadline. The CEO told me he was just trying to get investors which is understandable but he didn't want to work with me on a budget so I really could only provide about a days work on this, he also had a meeting the next day so he kind of abandoned communication afterwards.
There’s a world in all of these aspects, but one I’ve always really indulged into the science behind converting.
While you can have a beautiful website, it’s nothing without direction that leads visitors to either purchase or enroll.
While you have social media, it’s nothing if you can’t connect to your audience and say “go buy our product, link in bio”, and to take it a step further,
if that website in the bio sucks, you’re not converting at all.
There’s several things this can relate to, but I’ve seen a lot of small businesses lately, that will set up a e-commerce website, and just have bad call to actions, or have bad ways of purchasing, such as instead of having a cart they just have a direct to checkout.
To my surprise, when I first started in e-commerce, one of my jobs had a surprising 4.0% conversion rate, off a website that was truly awful. It felt like one of those old school wholesale buy everything and here’s a ton of ads everywhere on our site. I’m unsure how they did it, but I’ll tell you, it was a very trendy product at the time. Doing several million in sales per variant, and 8 or so variants, they had a warehouse in San Antone, but it was more or so a quick repackaging center more than anything.
An example of this is that one of my most recent clients had a “Add to cart” action on a catalog style website, but when users would click on it, it would automatically take them to checkout, which is fine if you have a smaller catalog or maybe a single product you're trying to sell, but in a large 50+ product catalog, you probably want to do some more cross and upselling.
Now, this whole thing is very much written in the sense that all brand owners want to convert better.
Sometimes, some brands really just lack their ability to convert, in these days of cheap websites like Temu or whatever, some business owners are being beaten by cheaper solutions, but I truly believe theres always a way. It may take a harsh time period of trial and error, but I think it’s all worth it to truly get that conversion.
90% of business fail because… (theres several reasons but hear me out)
Failure of proper allocated spending.
From my perspective, many startups spend in places they shouldn’t.
A prime example; I had a client a while back,
who started his company on Monday (little to no research), by Thursday, he had a small office space (probably a 12 month lease), a new computer set up with no tech skills, a had hired 4 bang-up job companies for plugins on his site, which he bought the most expensive versions for, they were necessary, however, I just don’t think the highest price of them really were, and then all the other misc expenses.
He did all of this, without having a single client inline ready to pay.
A few months go by, And he built and hired a small team, which is great to hear!! We love that.
However, he went and hired upper-class like managers.
Which hey, I’m okay with that, I’d probably rather probably take the route of hiring quality entry level individuals whom knew what they were doing, and paid them well.
Essentially, if I were starting something, which I currently am, have done, and have been a part of many other people starting their things, I would do it like this,
Find something you’re good at or passionate about. Ideally for me, passion wins. Passion ignites something different in you, the love for it usually lasts longer,
in the game of business, isn’t it just who lasts the longest?
Then, I would conduct research on it.
I would look up, learn, be educated and educate myself (shoutout Youtube)….
How to be the best at it(at what I'm trying to offer), Companies that do great at it or similar things, How is the industry now and where is it heading, and Accomplishing Target Market, this for me is #1, why?
If you can’t tell me the very last detail in great detail, you’ve failed. Product Market research, Market conditions, making sure that it doesn’t have one hot day a year (ahem, Best Buy and Black Friday... they have 1 day of year where they see more sales then the entire year combined and thats Black Friday) And then finally, write a deeply detailed document of analytical research, supply chain, profits, sales, incomes and outcomes, and various other things such as targeted ebit & ebitda.
Take some time doing this; I think it's one thing to be super quick and excited, it's another to be structurally sound and build, research, strategy, and planning all take time.
Then, I’d act on it.
All good things take time, do not rush anything.
I'd do as much as I could do before outsourcing. Don't know code? learn it. Dont know finance? learn it. Don't know about connecting to customer? learn it.
Most overnight successes took years of daily failures to become what they are today.
In fact, you would be surprised at how many people are utilizing quality AI prompts to speed up their research and increase their knowledge of how to operate.
Spend time and money on your research, make sure you build up an incredible investors or spending pitch deck, and then step into another perspective and tear it all down, and reverse engineer it.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them - Albert Einstein
When it comes to all of this, the designing, the developing, the sales, the marketing, the branding, the startup stuff, and all the other things, for me, my perspective is that if you create a unique experience, you’ll have an easier time accomplishing goals.
It’s certain that it’s not about keeping up with trends, or even staying ahead of trends. It’s about creating an experience that wows the users and converts them into retaining /// superstar customers. By superstar customers, I mean customers who buy an item 1 time, and have such a great experience, they tell their circles, their audience, and their friends and family on their own without the brand asking for it.
You may be asking, how does one make a “superstar customer”?
This can be accomplished in several ways, but it requires a little of each to really dial it in.
Creating an impactful brand
Creating an impactful product
Creating a website with direction
Creating an impactful purchasing experice
Having incredible customer relations
I’m going to do this in reverse.
Incredible customer relations trickles down from having a brand identity and atmosphere, being responsive online (Not with some AI text chat bot that sucks), and replying to people on social media.
A few of my favorite brands doing this well are... Audi, the car brand, they reply to every social media comment. Chomps, the snack company, 1, their content is warm and inviting, 2, they have a sense of direction, every post points to the link in bio, the link in bio is quickly updated to fit the post most recently mentioned, creating a seamless shopping experience from the Instagram. and lastly, Wholefoods. Wholefoods makes content that seems real, it’s relatable, it doesn’t have big photography / videography equipment, you can tell the team is just recording off iPhone with some genuine creative direction. They also don’t necessary over promote products, they make funny videos and trendy feed posts to stay relevant, and they reply via DM most of the time.
Creating a website with direction.
Too many call to actions: way too desperate, or what my slang would be, “reachy”. No call to actions: what are users going to do? Leave confused? yes.
A website with good direction captures the users experience that right away, makes them say “wow” and without having to scroll or wait on anything, they can see things like the branding, the valuable tagline / slogan, and the call to action.
Creating an impactful purchase experience.
This flows from a nice website / onboarding, to a nice packaging experience when your customer receives their order, or in the tech world, a nice interactive experience when signing up for our saas. I can't emphasize this enough, make every shopping experience feel like it's one of a kind. In e-commerce, regardless of how small or big you are, writ that hand written note on that nice card material saying thank you. In the digital space, send that thank you message from your professional-personal email. The impactful experience
Impactful product.
Creating a impactful product goes past just what the customer sees. There’s a ton in prototyping, testing, and conceptualizing.You only have to be right 1 time. You only have to have 1 product that’s as perfect as possible to win.If you ever wonder about pricing, my solution is this book called How To Master The Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins.
For this, please see my article, why branding is everything.
When all of these are perfectly aligned, you’ve built a strong structure.
Having incredible customer relations.
It's not difficult to be a company with a human-first aspect and respect with your customers.
Like for me in all of my ventures, if and when a customer has needed something, I've been there to support. Being transparent and being reasonable always wins.
In a summary, the journey from conceptualization to fruition in the world of business revolves around the creation of a unique and captivating experience for customers. This involves a holistic approach that encompasses impactful branding, product development, website design, and customer relations. By prioritizing the cultivation of "superstar customers" – those who not only make a purchase but also become enthusiastic advocates – businesses can foster lasting connections and drive sustained growth. From fostering genuine interactions on social media to crafting websites with clear direction and creating products that exceed expectations, each element plays a crucial role in building a strong foundation for success. When all these components align harmoniously, they form a robust structure that propels businesses towards achieving their goals and solidifying their position in the marketplace.
