Starting our own company. What inspired us?

07 Jun 2009
2 comments

Wow!..We did it! We started our own company. A dream come true! But starting up a company is not something we decided overnight. It is an idea that gradually grew and developed. The first time the idea of our own business came up was when we talked about developing an application together. At that time we all worked at the same company and talked a lot about what opportunities the web offers. The fact that all three of us have skills that complement each other was just luck, I guess. When we started off building that application we noticed that working together worked out pretty well and maybe even more important; we had fun! We sometimes joked about the possibility that the application we were building would make us millionaires. This dream planted the seed in our brains to start our own business.

Seeing people around us with successful web businesses helped tremendously and helped to figure out how we would like to run our own business. Six companies in particular inspired us to take the leap, each of the companies in this list have an element that we greatly admire.

1. Kees-tm

All three of us have worked for Kees-tm, this is the company where Petar and I met Joeri. The best thing about Kees-tm was the athmosphere in the work place. There was a dartboard to relieve some stress and to determine who had to do the dishes after lunch. There was a swing in the middle of the office to relax and to generate ideas. But the no-nonsense approach to web development makes Kees-tm stand out from the rest of the crowd. Many companies try to sound more interesting than they are by using difficult words and building websites that have a ridiculous corporate look. Kees-tm always uses clear language and has a very distinctive look and feel.
kees-tm.nl

2. Made by Sofa

Made by Sofa is a web development company based in Amsterdam. These guys make beautiful things. Their stunning minimalistic website features in almost every css gallery and is by itself a great inspiration. You just get the sense that these guys know what they are doing and have a lot of fun doing it. To be honest, we are just jealous of these guys. Their designs and products are top of the bill. This level of quality is what we are aiming for.
madebysofa.com

3. Carsonified

This company is based in Bath, UK. They design and develop web applications and organize events about the web. This company oozes creativity and enthusiasm. Just look at some apps they created and see what kind of events they organize, you will see what we mean. If we had not founded Bread and Pepper, we would apply for a job with them!
carsonified.com

4. 37signals

The webapplication heroes. No other company (well ok..maybe Google) have built such successful web applications as 37 signals. Applications like Basecamp and Campfire are used by millions of people. Their applications excel in usability and build quality. There is a lot to learn from these guys, if we could build an application that could reach a fraction of the popularity of Basecamp, we would be very happy indeed.
37signals.com

5. UKWebCo.com

This is a London based web development company that mainly focuses on e-commerce. There are two qualities that this company excels in; sales and project management. Their sales team has a great ability to find a connection with new clients and give them the feeling of reliability and trust. Even in the toughest times, during the bottom of the economic crisis, they managed to keep the projects coming in. The second factor that makes us admire UKWebCo.com is their project management skills. I think I speak for all the web developers and designers in the world when I say project management is quite often the hardest bit of developing a website or application. Understanding what a client needs and explaining what the best solution is, sometimes takes more time and energy than the actual development time. Doing this and keeping a good and long lasting relationship with a client at the same time is something these guys understand.
ukwebco.com

6. Wilson Miner

Wilson Miner is a freelance web designer who is more of a personal hero than an inspiring company. This man is responsible for the stunning beauty of the Apple website, Django admin, and everyblock.com. Besides making designs that are very intuitive and visually stunning he is a strong believer in web standards and coding beauty. Check out his website: wilsonminer.com. If there was a poster available of this guy I would hang it above my bed.

Tags: Company