Terms
The Wonder Jam is "a family of brands that help entrepreneurs grow in a way that is soulful, shrewd, and spirited" according to the words immortalized by Daft Punk, harder, better, faster and stronger. One of those brands, Wonderly, builds websites, visual branding assets and Membership software that helps its clients "set them apart". I spoke to managing Partner Allie Lehman and developer Matt Hart for more information.
Fine art to freelance into freedom
"My experience is in fine arts. I spent my childhood performing lots of drawing and oil painting," begins Allie Lehman. "At high school I had a fantastic art teacher , who funny enough, said, 'You could become an illustrator or graphic designer'' though I didn't really know 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, but I learned lots about servers as well as how WordPress was installed, and everything related to a website," she remembers. "In 2013 I launched The Wonder Jam, now our parent company. I quit my job as a designer and started that full time."
She was working along with Matt Hart for a couple years at this point. Matt Hart would create websites and she would design the websites. After that, they started working together frequently: "We've been working together since the past 10 years at first as freelancers. The collaboration was organic. The focus is now on businesses that provide services and building WordPress sites," Allie adds.
Matt begins: "I do primarily WordPress development. The process was taught by myself during the first decade of 2010. Many those who had a chance to enter the WordPress world and were thinking, 'We need to do CSS so that this theme can have the right colours', and it quickly became boring!" he smiles. As page builder tools like Beaver Builder and Elementor came into the picture, they were able to gain some flexibilities: "We could do things in a very custom way which was geared towards the particular demands of our clients which really pleased us in a creative way."
From the very beginning of their collaboration, Allie and Matt have focused on "going custom in a way that is affordable" and, as Matt explains: "We do only what our clients need and not what our clients don't. This is something that our clients want to know: they aren't looking to make this appear strange. They're looking to feel more confident. And using these tools lets us do that."
View this post on Instagram
A blog post that is shared via The Wonder Jam (@thewonderjam)
Allie continues: "In 2013, I started The Wonder Jam with my husband. We had started by freelancing for myself as a freelancer on my own. We were fortunate to have Matt as Developer Contractor. We had a desire to work. we were looking to be able to create what we wanted to do, and were looking for the freedom to do so." That's how the Wonder Jam was born.
Systems, soils and support
"We are from Columbus, Ohio and it's a really welcoming open community in terms of small business," she continues. "Matt would visit from Seattle and we began working with clients in the local area; we would walk down the main street and look at every business that we've collaborated with." In 2020, the Wonder Jam had been around for seven years. The Wonder Jam and as the company began to grow nationally, they made it the parent company, which now has three sister brands.
Wonderly concentrates on businesses that provide services that include authors, non-profits as well as fitness instructors, chefs and cooks. The brand also has a sister one called Basis, focusing on retailers and people selling products, as well as a brand called Studio Wonder, an events area and photography studio within Columbus.
View this post on Instagram
A blog post that is shared by The Wonder Jam (@thewonderjam)
The three brands offer a great deal of creative flexibility: "It allows our team to focus on the things they would like to accomplish, and have individual processes to follow," Allie says. "Because Matt and I started working together from the start and have over a decade of processes under our belt. I have photos from 2017 showing us whiteboarding every step of our process, so that our clients feel really guided.
"The Wonder Jam operates as the "soil" to supply the things every small business requires to be able to go on behind the scenes Each sister brand is able to "produce each in their own manner and does what it wants with any opportunities that present themselves. That lets all of the pathways be clear and without a hiccup caused by factors that hinder the running of a one- or two-person enterprise," Matt continues. "We are a group of companies which can work together."
The Basis brand focuses on Shopify and e-commerce, but sometimes there's a client that wants to start blogging and wants to do something that's better than the services Shopify offers. So Wonderly can come in to provide advice to the Basis customer on the processes that are related to WordPress. "We have the ability to help and collaborate with each other and are a cohesive team and yet everyone is able to specialize in a way which is satisfying for the individual," he smiles.
"The Wonder Jam sits as an enabling foundation. No one is in charge of telling us who to work with or how much profit to generate - that's entirely up to an executive partner to decide," says Allie. They share tools like software, project management systems and a service for clients. The management partners are able to schedule a project. The team members then take over the project, and also handle all the backend admin including invoicing, contracts and so on.
"It helps people such as Matt as well as myself focus on the work," Allie smiles. "I consider that we've created the perfect working environment. this is all about making sure that our customers enjoy great experience. If they send us an email and feel that they're getting good response times and are supported throughout the entire process."
Matt says: "We say we don't make designs for you. We make things with you. We're not planning to go out for a while and make something without them. We get together often and allow them to see the process from start to end, rather than leaving to our crafty caves and making things by ourselves!"
Clients and contexts
Matt and Allie collaborate with lots of different organizations that need their site accessible in lots of different ways. "Some of our clients are not-for-profit organizations. They tend to be extremely robust websites. They're often too complex, or they've existed for a long time. We tend to combine or condensing them so that the website is simpler." Matt explains.
"We're in contact with those that want to join a membership site, such as people in the food industry," 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. We tend to work with those who've put lots of their own energy, time and money into their businesses," she adds.
The Wonder Jam brands work with anyone, from large-scale organizations to solo entrepreneurs who are transitioning to full-time from a side hustle. "We've been trying to design structures that will meet both. We're learning what scales well, and what you need to consider differently, in cases where the scale is dramatically different. This is a lot of fun to figure out!" Matt laughs.
He adds "With non-profit organizations, they typically already have a foundation and they've already figured out all of the legal hoops to jump through. This is often how we make it happen, as we're not looking to make a fresh start." The group is going to reframe what they've experienced, and find what context might move somebody to donate, and make the donation process easier.
At the beginning of the partnership as well with every customer, regardless of their type of company and the size of the site, the Wonder Jam team talks about the methodology of customer service. "A site can be an instrument that's good at getting a first purchase, but it could also be really good at getting clients returning, or acting as a resource. The question we usually ask is: "Is this a resource, or could it help in encouraging VIPs?' those who are considered to be the most crucial customers to small-scale businesses," Allie explains.
Matt and Allie Both agree that websites can't be all things for everybody and is crucial to be strategic. "Whenever we're creating a membership site, the number one thing we're thinking about is getting users to keep coming back to use it all the time and believe that it's the best value they've ever received," Matt adds.
Case studies: Simi and Molly
Allie says: "One of our clients, Simi Botic, has an exercise community and participation in Unmeasured, which is all focused on body movement. It's called the Barre Method. Simi has such a compassionate approach of "Just Get Moving' and not trying to 'punish' your body. There are a variety of options depending on your mobility."
When Simi first joined Wonderly, she had a small number of videos on the site and were changed every week. "It allows for things to feel curated and allows for her to pair what is practical with her schedule" Allie confirms. "After about two to three years, we expanded the members' list, which gives her the opportunity to provide an even greater service to her customers, which is amazing. We are thrilled that we're flexible enough to change our plans when our clients' goals change; it's just a matter of re-evaluating the structure, making small changes, and then implement them in the development."
Another client, Molly Baz, wanted to change her platform and move to something that would be more distinctive and interactive. "Her brand's visual identity is fluid and unique to her. Her goal was for her followers to feel 'live like that with recipes and updates and the same sort of content that they were used to however in a manner that felt on-brand and felt unique to her style," Allie explains.
As we at know, Molly's community has become so significant to her. "To have the ability to place it into a format that is in line to her design aesthetic, and changing the website from 'Oh yeah there's a photo of Molly and you can buy her cookbook' to something more substantial, both inside as well as outside the membership. This adds up to a lot of value," Allie muses.
"Something we've attempted to do with our clients is consider the things that it will be the experience for them if we're not talking to them every day. We ensure that they have the right systems in place for them to utilize the software we've developed for them - and Molly's case is a good illustration of this," Matt agrees.
More information and future projects
Matt and Allie have been working with sites and companies that need "a large amount of accessibility" to people with disabilities. "We're working with some really impressive organisations that work hard in order to get these websites and prototypes approved by the groups of people."
The majority of them agree that, overall, they've been very lucky with their clients "It's been amazing to just keep working with truly great people. The clients we work with are extremely sensitive and they always are respected and appreciated," Allie concludes. "We have the privilege of working with really fascinating people with values that guide their work. It's a great feeling being able to create stuff that is for them," Matt smiles.
Find out more information regarding Allie Lehman and Matt Hart along with their team, as well as consider working with them, at thewonderjam.com or withwonderly.com.