Rebel Stories: Designing New Software with Industrial Agency
When you’ve been around for 18 years, you’ve learned a few things. And when you work in an industry that is constantly changing thanks to new technologies, you need to take what you’ve learned and evolve.
Industrial, a web design and development agency in Ottawa, Canada, did just that.
Noticing a Niche
A 12-person agency, Industrial is an innovative workshop made up of designers and developers. Over the course of their 18-year history, they’ve worked with everyone from large associations to not-for-profits, designing and building websites on CMS platforms like Drupal and WordPress.
“We started to notice a common problem that many of our clients were dealing with,” Laura Mindorff, Industrial’s Chief Operating Officer, told me. “Because we work so closely with associations and member-driven organizations, they have the added task of managing their membership base.”
Industrial's clients would ask to have their websites integrated directly with their existing Association Management Software (AMS), but this process was far from seamless.
“The typical AMS will build an all-in-one solution that doesn’t always work for everyone,” says Laura. “If a client wants to use Mailchimp, they can’t. Any data they integrate from an outside platform doesn’t connect to their AMS.”
Developing a Solution
Industrial knew there had to be a better way for their clients to manage their membership data. Enter Wicket, the custom software they designed specifically for this niche of clientele.
“We don’t believe any one product can do everything well,” says Laura. “A product should be made to do one thing really well – that’s what Wicket does.”
Wicket has been built to integrate all of the best tools, meaning that their clients can use it to manage their members while still taking advantage of best-in-class software. The most enticing feature of Wicket is that it allows clients to keep an accurate record of member engagement. Do you want to know if the email you sent from Mailchimp was opened by a specific member? Wicket can tell you that.
“We’ve been developing Wicket for the past three years and bootstrapping it,” says Laura. “We’re excited that it just became an official entity in February of this year. Now that we’re going out for pre-seed funding to help grow the product, we are separating Industrial and Wicket into two different companies.”
Going for Growth
Industrial has been going strong for almost two decades and continues to grow thanks to the impeccable work ethic of their entire team. Industrial is a highly-focused team that “prefer to work with modern tools and technologies that support test driven development, rapid prototyping and iterative development.” It’s this type of approach that planted the seeds for Wicket to grow.
“While we’re in the startup phase, it’s fun to see how quickly things can take off,” says Laura. “Even though it’s been three years of bootstrapping, things are really starting to move now. It’s amazing to watch Wicket start to blossom.”
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