About VentureWeb
VentureWeb is a team of diverse creative talents together delivering a complete suite of online marketing and web development solutions. Locating our studio in Squamish, BC—wedged between Vancouver’s new media hub and Whistler’s world-famous stomping grounds—is no coincidence. Our passion for the outdoor lifestyle runs deep, and the appreciation we have for living here motivates us to drill to the core of our clients' business with the same enthusiasm we apply to our pursuits beyond the office. We understand marketing and business imperatives that drive our client’s business goals, and provide creative solutions to achieve them – on time and on budget.
Why VentureWeb?
We’re different because we don’t think like other web companies, and we don’t work the same way either. With a small dynamic team we can tailor our solutions to each individual client, and focus intensely on the select projects at hand. And rather than designing websites, databases or campaigns independently, our holistic approach ensures all components fit seamlessly together make the biggest impact.
We are focused on long-term results and relationships. Our ideas look beyond short-term campaigns and, instead, focus on your long-term marketing plans and brand building, with room for plenty of growth.
We both live and work in the community we serve, believing strongly in the strength of collaboration and social responsibility. VentureWeb is proud to have contributed resources to the development of the following non-profit organizations:
- The Squamish Emergency Program
- Inside Edge –Growing Technology in the Sea to Sky
- The Adopt A Trail Program
Our Philosophy
Our full service approach is simple. We believe a website or marketing campaign should do more than just resonate with your audience and showcase your brand. The pretty pictures that inspire us are only the beginning of a fully-integrated, online presence. Every website or campaign we create leverages a sound strategy, feature-rich technology and simple usability to not only draw in visitors, but also add to the bottom line.
When it comes to using the best tools for the job, we’re all about providing you with the best solution, customized to your brand and unique needs, without reinventing the wheel. Being active in the local Drupal community and keeping up with the rapidly expanding open-source and 3rd party software market enables us to build exactly what your company needs. With open-source, cost savings are just the beginning - content distribution and viral marketing are the real treats.
Our Engagement Process
While every project is unique, managing them is systematic. As a result, we are able work efficiently and adhere to agreed-upon timelines and budgets. From the estimate stage through project execution, we refer to identified development phases, making it easier to map out—and follow—where we are at on the road to completion.
We understand that Budget and Functionality are likely the two most important factors in your website build. For this reason, with every project we undertake a thorough requirements specification and capture process that really allows us to identify what you are trying to achieve, and match functionality to your budget accordingly. At the end of this process, you will have a set of blueprints from which your website will be designed and built. These blueprints contain:
- Design Brief
- Functional Specification
- Internet Architecture Documentation
- Wireframes detailing key structures
- Website Sequence & Flow diagrams
Design & Development start simultaneously. The process of creating a design contains 3 or 4 cycles of Design work, Client Presentation and Client Feedback. This results in a set of designs that graphically represent the key elements and pages of your website. These are delivered in Photoshop document format. With the functional blueprints in place the Development process can start immediately, developing core system functionality. Once the core pieces of the puzzle are in place, and the design has been finalized, the final step is to 'Theme' the site – taking the design photoshop documents and converting them into HTML and CSS. Extra GUI functionality is added with Javascript.
Throughout the development phase, and if in particular a piece of functionality requires client approval, we provide development snap-shots so that clients can preview functionality and provide feedback on it.
Once design and development has been completed, we enter a private launch phase where we complete content loading, testing and bug fixing. This phase typically runs for 2 weeks, and once completed, the site is launched. Once the site is launched, we enter a warranty period where any issues that still exist are fixed promptly. This period affords the client the time to double check that the project specification has been fulfilled to their liking and for any creases to be ironed out. It's all about peace of mind and ensuring that everyone is happy.
Project Management with ActiveCollab
VentureWeb uses ActiveCollab (our favourite Open-Source project management tool) to itemize and schedule every phase of the project, from Discovery through to Post-Launch. It enables us to set project milestones, create tickets to complete within those milestones, and assign tasks to individual team members, either Client or VentureWeb. All comments, associated files, approvals, etc pertaining to each ticket are documented within it, and assigned users logged into their activeCollab account are alerted to any ticket updates via an email to their regular email account. At any time, any project user can review an individual ticket to be updated on all the correspondence pertaining to that item. And that means less wheel-spinning, more progress.
