Terms
Wonder Jam Wonder Jam is "a family of brands who help scrappy, soulful businesses grow", in the words immortalized by Daft Punk, harder, better, faster and stronger. One of these brands, Wonderly, builds websites as well as visual branding tools and membership software to help its clients "set themselves apart". I spoke with the managing Partner Allie Lehman and developer Matt Hart to learn more.
Fine art to freelance into freedom
"My background is in the fine arts. I grew up taking part in an abundance of drawing as well as oil painting," says Allie Lehman. "At high school I had an excellent art teacher who, funnily enough, told me that you might be an illustrator or graphic designer'' knowing nothing about the difference between these two things! I chose graphic design and studied it in college."
Allie was a graduate during the downturn in 2009 and was employed in web hosting support. "It was pretty stressful, however, I did learn a lot about hosting servers and the process of how WordPress was installed, and all things 'website'," she remembers. "In 2013, I started The Wonder Jam, now the parent company of our business. I quit my design job and began the full-time business."
She was working together with Matt Hart for a couple years by this point; Matt Hart would create websites and she would develop websites for them. After that, they started working together regularly: "We've been working together for over 10 years, at first as freelancers. Their collaboration came about naturally. Now we focus on companies that offer services, and creating WordPress websites," Allie adds.
Matt begins: "I do primarily WordPress development. The process was taught by myself in the early 2010s. A lot of those who had a chance to enter the WordPress world, it was like"we need to make CSS to make this theme be able to match the appropriate colors' and that quickly became boring!" he smiles. As page builder tools like Beaver Builder and Elementor came in, they gained some flexibilities: "We could do things with a custom approach which really suited the unique demands of our clients and really satisfied us creatively."
From the very beginning of their relationship, Allie and Matt have been focused on "going custom in a way that is affordable" according to Matt explains: "We do only what our customers want, and not anything our clients wouldn't. That's something our clients really care about: they don't want this to feel mysterious. They'd like to feel confident. By using these tools let us accomplish that."
See this article on Instagram
A blog post that is shared with The Wonder Jam (@thewonderjam)
Allie continues: "In 2013, I started The Wonder Jam with my husband, after freelancing by myself as a single individual freelancer. We were fortunate to have Matt as a developer contractor. We had a desire to work. we wanted to pursue our own thing, we were looking for that freedom." The Wonder Jam was born.
Soil, support and systems
"We reside in Columbus, Ohio and it's an extremely welcoming and open-minded area for small businesses," she continues. "Matt would visit on his way to Seattle and we would begin working with local clients; we would walk down the street downtown and see all the different businesses that we've collaborated with." The year is 2020. following seven years with The Wonder Jam and as they started to expand nationwide, they became the parent company, which now has three brands that are sister brands.
Wonderly concentrates on businesses that provide services which include non-profits, authors, chefs and fitness instructors. It also owns a brand called Basis, focusing on retailers and those selling items, along with a different brand called Studio Wonder, an events area and photography studio situated in Columbus.
View this post on Instagram
A shared post via The Wonder Jam (@thewonderjam)
Three brands that allow for a great deal of creative liberty: "It allows our team to focus on what they really want to do as well as their own processes," Allie says. "Because Matt and I started working together from the start, we have more than a decade of process under our belt. I have images from 2017, of us drawing whiteboards on all of our processes, to ensure that our clients are very well-informed.
"The Wonder Jam operates as the 'soil' to provide the things every small business requires to be able to go in the background Then each sister brand gets to 'sprout according to its own style and do whatever it can with opportunities that arise. That lets all of the routes be clearly defined and unhindered by things that hinder the running of an individual or two-person enterprise," Matt continues. "We are a group of companies that are able to work in tandem."
The Basis brand offers primarily Shopify as well as e-commerce. However, sometimes there's a client that wants to start blogging and wants to offer something better than the services Shopify provides. So Wonderly can come in to provide advice to the Basis client about processes that relate to WordPress. "We are able to support and interact with one another and feel like a team, even though everyone gets to specialize in a way that feels satisfying to them," he smiles.
"The Wonder Jam sits as a supportive foundation; no-one is at the top in deciding who we should work with or what amount of revenue to earn - it's all entirely up to The managing partner" continues Allie. They share resources like software and system for managing projects and customer concierge. Each managing partner is able to book a project; the team members can then join the project and manage everything back-end administration like invoicing and contracts.
"It helps people such as Matt and me concentrate on their work." Allie smiles. "I consider that we've created the perfect working environment. it comes back to making sure that our customers enjoy great experiences. If they send us an email, they feel like they're receiving prompt responses and feel that they're being supported throughout the entire process."
Matt says: "We say we don't design for you, we make things in partnership with you. We're not planning to go off for a couple of months and make something without them. We get together often and allow them to see how we work from beginning to end, rather than retreating to our own creative spaces and creating things by ourselves!"
Contexts and clients
Matt and Allie collaborate with lots of different organizations that need their site available in a variety of ways. "Some of our customers are nonprofits. These are very robust sites. They're probably too complicated or they've been around for quite a while. Therefore, we tend to consolidate or condensing them so that the website could be more simple," Matt explains.
"We're as well working with individuals that want to join a membership site like those from the food business," Allie continues. Wonderly's clients tend to be people who do human-service-oriented work: "They're fighting for equality, they're looking to talk to their audience a little differently. Our clients tend to be people who have poured a ton of their own energy, time and money into their businesses," she adds.
Wonder Jam Wonder Jam brands work with all kinds of organizations, from national organizations to solo entrepreneurs who want to go full-time employment from side jobs. "We've attempted to create solutions that meet each. We're figuring out what scales best as well as what needs to think about in a different way, even when the size is different. This is a lot of fun to discover!" Matt laughs.
The author adds that "With charities, they generally have an established structure and have identified all the legal hoops they had to go through. This is often how we make it work, because we're not trying to make a fresh start." The team is going to reframe what they've experienced, and determine what kind of context could motivate someone to give, and then smooth the process.
Early in the partnership, and with each customer, regardless of their type of company and the size of the website, the Wonder Jam team talks about the customer experience methodology. "A website could be a tool that's really effective in securing a first sale. It can also help in attracting returning customers, or being useful. We usually ask, 'Is it a resource? Or can it be good at creating VIPs?' those who are considered to be the most crucial people to a small business," Allie explains.
Matt and Allie agree that a website can't be all things for everybody and is crucial to be strategic. "Whenever you're working on one that is a member-based site first thing we're thinking about is the desire for people to come back and be able to utilize it every time, and to feel that it's the greatest value they've ever had," Matt adds.
Case studies: Simi and Molly
Allie starts: "One of our clients, Simi Botic, has an exercise group and a the membership is called Unmeasured and is centered around body movement, called"the Barre Method. Simi has such a compassionate view of "Just move' and not looking to "punish" your body. There are a variety of alternatives based on the mobility of your body."
When Simi first joined Wonderly the site, she only had a small number of videos available and these could be changed once per week. "It lets things be more organized and allows her to combine what's practical with her schedule" Allie confirms. "After about two to three years of operation, we increased the membership, to give her the chance to give more to her audience, which is amazing. We are thrilled that we're capable of changing our approach when customers' needs change. we're simply reassessing our structure, making minor changes before applying them to the design."
Another customer, Molly Baz, wanted to change her platform to one that could be more distinctive and interactive. "Her aesthetic branding is vibrant and exclusive to her. She wanted her viewers to live' in that style They received recipes, updates as well as the exact type of information they are familiar with however in a manner that felt authentic and unique to her style," Allie explains.
We've all heard that Molly's fan base has grown to be so crucial for her. "To have the ability to place the website in a way which is consistent with the rest of her style - shifting the web page from "Ooh that's an image of Molly - go buy the cookbook' into something very significant, both inside and outside of the membership. It adds an enormous amount of value" Allie muses.
"Something we've been trying to do with our clients is consider the things that it will be similar for them when we don't talk to them all day. We make sure they have good systems in place in order to make use of our tool we've created to them. Molly's experience was an excellent illustration of this," Matt agrees.
Further information, as well as future plans
Matt and Allie have been working with companies and sites that require "a large amount of accessibility" to accommodate users with disabilities. "We're working with some really impressive organisations that work hard to have these sites and prototypes approved by the groups of users."
In general they've enjoyed a great experience in their relationships with clients "It's incredible to keep working with truly great individuals. They are very considerate and we have a sense of respect," Allie concludes. "We are fortunate to collaborate with really interesting people with values that guide their job. It's a great feeling being able to create stuff that is for them," Matt smiles.
Find out more information on Allie Lehman and Matt Hart along with their team, as well as think about collaboration with them at thewonderjam.com and withwonderly.com.