Lessons Learned — We Need Shoes Too

“The cobbler's children have no shoes” is a common phrase that refers to someone who is so focused on providing for others that they disregard their own needs. At Mindera, we were shoeless for a while in one main aspect — a website that was representative of the breadth and scope of our growing business. Let me explain…

Growing a referral-based business

Since Mindera’s inception in 2014, our sales success has relied 100% on the strength of referrals. Our clients have come to us because of the excellence of our engineering and the strength of our relationships, not because of any marketing or other sales-related activity.

Internet marketing expert Peggy McColl rightly noted this:

“A strong referral comes from a trusted advisor or colleague and you have seen the quality of their work. Just because a referral’s website is a bit outdated does not mean they won’t produce great products for you. It could be a sign that they are very popular and their clients are their main priority.”

That was us!

But as we grew into new markets and began to create new relationships, we found that being shoeless (for the first time ever) mattered.

Like it or not, perception = reality

Today, a website is the first impression for many companies. There is an unwritten social code that implies how we represent ourselves within our own company’s website determines the quality of our work. Internally, at Mindera, we know that this is not true. A potential client only needs to look at the excellent products that we have built for others to know that we are legitimate and our quality is excellent.

Nonetheless, the perception of Mindera was being impacted by a 1st generation website that needed updating. Our previous website did not reflect the level of expertise we were capable of, highlight our work, or reflect our unique culture.

It was time for a Mindera.com makeover.

The Mindera.com makeover

Like any good makeover, we started by assessing the situation, understanding what we were trying to accomplish, and assembling the tools and teams we needed to accomplish our new goals. As with any other Mindera project, we stuck to the rituals of agile and lean that create trust and accountability.

We discussed which developers would be skilled in the specific needs of the project, an approach that allowed us to effectively identify the business drivers and needs of our website by levels of importance. An open discussion (which is a Mindera speciality) revealed the beautiful evolution and growth our company now faces. It was a celebration of success, as we identified the areas that needed to be updated on the website.

The result is a website that showcases and embodies what Mindera is and highlights the work we truly love to do.

We designed some new shoes — this time they are for us to wear.

About Mindera

At Mindera, we use technology to build products we are proud of, with people we love. We love our work, we love our clients, and we focus on delivering only the best for them. In the two years that we’ve been in business, we’ve expanded from a founding team of five to more than 160 people across two time zones. We’ve opened offices in the UK and USA, and now serve clients on every continent (except Antarctica, brrr).