Terms
Wonder Jam Wonder Jam is "a family of brands who help entrepreneurs grow in a way that is soulful, shrewd, and spirited", in the words immortalized by Daft Punk, harder, more efficient, quicker and stronger. One of the brands, Wonderly, builds websites, visual branding assets and membership software to help its clients "set them apart". I spoke with its managing associate Allie Lehman and developer Matt Hart to learn more.
Fine art and freelance work for the freedom of
"My roots are in the fine arts; I grew up doing lots of drawing and oil painting," begins Allie Lehman. "At high school, I had a great art teacher who, funnily enough, suggested that I could become an illustrator and graphic designer'' when I had no idea what those things were! I chose graphic design and went to college to study it."
Allie left during the recession in 2009, and then went into the support for webhosting. "It was quite stressful, however, I did learn a lot about servers and the process of how WordPress was installed, and all things 'website'," she remembers. "In 2013, I founded The Wonder Jam, now our parent company. I quit my job as a designer and began the full-time business."
She had been collaborating with Matt Hart for a couple years by this point; Matt would write websites, and she would develop the websites. At this point, they started working together regularly: "We've been working together for more than 10 years, at first as freelancers. The collaboration was organic. Now we focus on service-based businesses building WordPress websites," Allie adds.
Matt begins: "I do primarily WordPress development. It was self-taught at the beginning of the decade. Many those who had a chance to enter the WordPress world the first thought was, 'We need to do CSS in order to make the theme be able to match the appropriate colors' and that got very boring very fast!" he smiles. When page builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor came in, they gained some flexibilities: "We could do things in a very custom way that really targeted the specific demands of our clients and we were able to satisfy us with our creativity."
Since the beginning of their partnership, Allie and Matt have been focused on "going to custom in a way that is affordable" according to Matt says: "We do only what our clients need and not what our clients don't. That's something our clients really are concerned about. They don't want this to feel strange. They're looking to feel more confident. With these tools, let us do that."
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Allie continues: "In 2013, I started The Wonder Jam with my husband, after freelancing by myself as a single individual freelancer. We had Matt as an developer contractor. We had a desire to work. we wanted to do our own thing, we wanted this freedom." It was then that the Wonder Jam was born.
Soil, support and systems
"We live in Columbus, Ohio and it's an open and welcoming neighborhood for small businesses," she continues. "Matt would visit from Seattle and we began working with local clients; we'd walk along the streets downtown, and check out all the different businesses we've worked with." The year is 2020. after seven years of The Wonder Jam and as The Wonder Jam began expanding nationwide, they became their parent company with three brands that are sister brands.
Wonderly concentrates on businesses that provide services that include authors, non-profits, chefs and fitness instructors. The brand also has a sister one called Basis which focuses on retail stores as well as people who sell products along with a different brand called Studio Wonder, an events space and photography studio in Columbus.
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The three brands offer the greatest amount of creative flexibility: "It allows our team to focus on what they really desire to achieve as well as individual processes to follow," Allie says. "Because Matt and I started working together from the start in the year 2000, we've got more than a decade of process that we have mastered. I have photos from 2017 of us whiteboarding all of our processes, so that our clients feel truly guided.
"The Wonder Jam operates as the "soil" to supply all the elements that every small company needs under the hood Then each sister brand gets to 'sprout' in its own way and gets to do what it wants with any opportunities that arise. This lets each of those pathways be clear and unhindered by things that make it hard to run an individual or two-person company," Matt continues. "We have a variety of businesses that are able to work in tandem."
The Basis brand is primarily Shopify as well as e-commerce. However, occasionally clients want to get blogging going and to offer something stronger than the one Shopify can offer. So Wonderly can come in to help the Basis customer on the processes that are related to WordPress. "We have the ability to help and interact with one another and work as a unit, even though everyone gets to specialize in a way that feels satisfying to the individual," he smiles.
"The Wonder Jam sits as an unifying foundation. Nobody is at the top telling us who to work with or how much profit to do - it's really dependent on the managing partner," adds Allie. The brands share tools like software, project management systems and a client concierge. This allows each managing partner to schedule a project. Team members are able to onboard the project and handle everything back-end administration like invoicing and contracts.
"It allows people such as Matt as well as myself concentrate on their work." Allie smiles. "I consider that we've created an environment that is great for working in; this is all about making sure that our customers enjoy great satisfaction. When they contact us via email and feel that they're receiving a timely response and they feel at ease throughout the procedure."
Matt is in agreement: "We say we don't make designs for you. We make things with you. We're not going to go off for a couple of months and make something without them. We have a lot of meetings and show them how the process works from start to end, rather than leaving to our crafty spaces and creating things on our own!"
Contexts and clients
Matt and Allie have worked with many of organisations that require the site to be accessible in lots of different ways. "Some of our clients are nonprofits. They tend to be extremely robust websites. They're probably too complicated or they've existed for quite some time. Therefore, we tend to consolidate or condensing the sites so they can be simpler," Matt explains.
"We're also working with people that want to join a membership site like those who work in the industry of food," 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. It's common for us to work with those who've put an enormous amount of their personal enthusiasm, their time, and money into their business," she adds.
The Wonder Jam brands work with everyone, from nationwide non-profits to entrepreneurs with a single person who are transitioning to full-time employment from side jobs. "We've been trying to design systems that can accommodate each. We're learning what scales well and how to think about differently, in cases where the scale is dramatically different. It's really enjoyable to discover!" Matt laughs.
He continues "With charities, they generally have an established structure and have been able to figure out all the legal hoops they had to jump through. This is often how we make it work, because we're not trying to create a new wheel." The group can reframe the situation and find what context might move somebody to donate, and make the donation process easier.
Early in the partnership, as well with every customer, regardless of their type of business and the scope of the site, The Wonder Jam team talks about the concept of customer experience. "A site can be a device that's good at getting a first purchase, but it could also help in attracting regular customers or serving as an asset. It is often asked if it a resource? Or is it capable of fostering VIPs?' - which are the most valuable people to a small business," Allie explains.
Matt and Allie both agree that websites shouldn't try to be everything to everyone and it's crucial to plan it out. "Whenever you're working on an online membership website first factor we're considering is that we want users to keep coming back to use it all the time and feel like it's the most valuable experience they've ever received," Matt adds.
Case studies: Simi and Molly
Allie begins: "One of our clients, Simi Botic, has an exercise group and a participation in Unmeasured, which is all around body movement, called"the Barre Method. Simi has such a compassionate perspective of 'Just get moving' and not seeking to punish your body. There are lots of different options depending on your mobility."
When Simi first joined Wonderly, she had only a handful of videos on the site and would be switched once a week. "It lets things be more organized and allows Simi to match what's feasible with her time schedule," Allie confirms. "After around two or three years of operation, we increased the membership, to give her the ability to offer greater value to the people she serves and that's amazing. We are thrilled that we're flexible enough to change our plans when our clients' objectives change. we're simply reassessing our structure, making tiny changes and implement them in the development."
Another client, Molly Baz, wanted to move from her current platform and move to something that would be more brand-named and immersive. "Her brand's visual identity is vibrant and exclusive to her. She wanted her viewers to feel 'live with her in this way; they got recipes and updates, and all the kind of information they are accustomed to, but in a way that was on-brand and really specific to her personality," Allie explains.
We've all heard that Molly's fan base has grown to be so important to her. "To have the ability to place the website in a way that fits in with her design aesthetic, and changing the site from "Oh, yeah, it's a picture of Molly Go buy her cookbook' into something very important, both within and outside of the membership. This adds up to many benefits," Allie muses.
"Something we've been trying to do with our customers is to think about what the future will look the experience for them if we don't talk to them all day. We make sure they have the right systems in place in order to make use of the software we've developed specifically for them. Molly's case is a good instance of that." Matt agrees.
More information and future projects
Matt and Allie are currently working largely on behalf of companies and websites which require "a heavy lens of accessibility" to accommodate users with disabilities. "We're cooperating with truly amazing organisations that work hard in order to get these websites and prototypes approved by the groups of users."
They agree, in general they've enjoyed a great experience in their relationships with clients "It's an amazing experience to keep working with truly great individuals. Our clients are really sensitive and they always have a sense of respect," Allie concludes. "We get to work with really fascinating people who's values guide their job. It's satisfying to be able to make things that are for them," Matt smiles.
Learn more about Allie Lehman and Matt Hart and their team, and think about collaboration with them at thewonderjam.com or withwonderly.com.