Terms
Wonder Jam Wonder Jam is "a family of brands who help scrappy, soulful businesses grow" In the words immortalized by Daft Punk, harder, better, faster and stronger. One of the brands, Wonderly, builds websites, visual branding assets and Membership software that helps its customers "set their own mark". I spoke to its managing Partner Allie Lehman and developer Matt Hart for more information.
Fine art to freelance to the freedom of
"My roots are in the fine arts. I was raised taking part in a lot of drawing and oil painting," starts Allie Lehman. "At high school, I had a great art teacher who, funnily enough, suggested that I might be an illustrator as well as a graphic designer'' knowing nothing about the difference between these two things! I chose graphic design , and took it up in college."
Allie graduated during the recession in 2009 and went into the support for webhosting. "It was a bit stressful however, I did learn a lot about hosting servers as well as the process of how WordPress got installed, all things 'website'," she remembers. "In 2013 I founded The Wonder Jam, now The Wonder Jam is our parent company. I left my design job and began working full-time for the company."
She had been collaborating with Matt Hart for a couple years by this point; he would code websites and she would develop websites for them. After that, they started working together much more often: "We've been working together for over 10 years, beginning as freelancers. Their collaboration came about naturally. Now we focus on businesses that provide services and building WordPress sites," Allie adds.
Matt begins: "I do primarily WordPress development. This was a self-taught skill in the early 2010s. A lot of those who had a chance to enter the WordPress world the first thought was, 'We need to do CSS so that this theme can use the correct color scheme'. It got very boring very fast!" he smiles. As page builder tools like Beaver Builder and Elementor came into play, they gained flexibility: "We could do things in a very custom way which really suited the unique demands of our clients and really satisfied us creatively."
Since the beginning of their relationship, Allie and Matt have concentrated on "going customized in a manner that is affordable" and, as Matt says: "We do only what our clients need and not what our clients don't. That's something our clients really want to know: they aren't looking to make this appear strange. They want to feel empowered. And using these tools lets us achieve that."
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Allie says: "In 2013, I created The Wonder Jam with my husband, after freelancing for myself as a freelancer on my own. We also had Matt as an developer contractor. We were looking to get work done, we wanted to do our own thing, we wanted the freedom to do so." It was then that the Wonder Jam was born.
Soil, support and systems
"We live in Columbus, Ohio and it's an extremely welcoming and open-minded community in terms of small businesses," she continues. "Matt came to visit us the city from Seattle and we started working with clients in the local area; we'd stroll down the street downtown and see all the different businesses we've worked with." In the year 2020, following seven years with The Wonder Jam and as they started to expand nationally, they made it their parent company and now have three sister brands.
Wonderly is a service-oriented business that focuses on that include authors, non-profits chef's and fitness instructors. The brand also has a sister one called Basis that focuses on the retail industry as well as people who sell products and a third brand, Studio Wonder, an events location and photography studio located situated in Columbus.
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These three brands allow a great deal of creative liberty: "It allows our team to focus on the things they would like to accomplish, and have their own processes," Allie says. "Because Matt and I started collaborating from the beginning and have over 10 years of experience that we have mastered. I have pictures from 2017 of us whiteboarding all of our processes, to ensure that our clients are very well-informed.
"The Wonder Jam operates as the "soil" that provides all the elements that every small company needs under the hood, then each sister brand is able to "produce each in their own manner and gets to do its thing with the possibilities that come up. This lets each of those paths be clear and be without a hiccup caused by factors that hinder the running of as a two or one-person company," Matt continues. "We are a group of companies which can work together."
As an example, the Basis brand is primarily Shopify and online shopping, however, sometimes clients want to start blogging and wants to create something better than the services Shopify provides. So Wonderly comes in to advise the Basis client on processes related to WordPress. "We have the ability to help and collaborate with each other and are a cohesive team even though each of us gets to focus on a particular area which is satisfying for their own," he smiles.
"The Wonder Jam sits as a supportive foundation; no-one has the final say giving us advice on who to collaborate with or what amount of revenue to earn - it's all up to an executive partner to decide," adds Allie. The brands share resources like software and project management systems and a customer concierge. This allows each managing partner to reserve a project. The team members then onboard the project and handle everything back-end administration like invoicing and contracts.
"It allows people such as Matt as well as myself be focused on what they do," Allie smiles. "I consider that we've created a great working environment; this is all about making sure our clients have great experience. If they email us, they feel like they're receiving prompt responses and are guided through the procedure."
Matt agrees: "We say we don't create for you, but we design together with you. We're not going to go off for a couple of months and create something on our own. We get together often and allow them to see how we work from beginning to finish, versus leaving to our crafty caves and making things on our own!"
Contexts and clients
Matt and Allie have worked with many of organisations that require the site accessible in many different ways. "Some of our customers are non-profits. These are very robust sites. They're probably too complicated or they've been around for a long time. Therefore, we tend to consolidate or condensing so the site could be more simple," Matt explains.
"We're in contact with those that want to join a membership site for their businesses, like people working 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 individuals who've invested lots of their own enthusiasm, their time, and money into their businesses," she adds.
Wonder Jam Wonder Jam brands work with all kinds of organizations, from national organizations to solo entrepreneurs that are transitioning into full-time employment from side jobs. "We've tried to build structures that will meet both. We're learning about what scales well and how to consider in a different way, even when the size is different. It's really enjoyable to discover!" Matt laughs.
He continues "With nonprofits, they usually have something established and they've been able to figure out all the legal hoops to cross. We'll often make this way work, because we're not looking to reinvent this wheel." The team is going to reframe what they've experienced, to determine the context that could motivate someone to give, and then smooth the process.
At the beginning of the partnership and with every single customer, regardless of their type of business or the nature of the website, the Wonder Jam team talks about the customer experience methodology. "A site can be a tool that's really good at getting a first purchase, but it could also be really good at getting returning customers, or being an asset. We usually ask, 'Is this an asset, or can it be good at creating VIPs?' who are the most important people to a small business," Allie explains.
Matt and Allie both agree that websites should not try to cater for everybody and is crucial to plan it out. "Whenever we're doing a membership site first aspect we're thinking about is the desire for users to keep coming back to use it all the time and believe that it's the greatest value they've ever experienced," 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 about body movements, also known as the Barre Method. She has such a compassionate approach of "Just Get Moving' and not looking to "punish" your body. There are a variety of choices based on your flexibility."
When Simi first started her journey on Wonderly there was a small number of videos to choose from and they were changed every week. "It makes things feel curated and allows for her to pair what is feasible with her time schedule," Allie confirms. "After about two to three years of operation, we increased the number of members, giving her the ability to offer more to her audience this is awe-inspiring. We love that we're capable of changing our approach when clients' goals change; we're just reassessing the layout, making a few tiny changes and implement them in the development."
Another customer, Molly Baz, wanted to move from her current platform to one that could be more distinctive and immersive. "Her brand's visual identity is fluid and unique to her. Her goal was for her followers to live with her in this way; they got recipes and updates, and all the kind of content that they were accustomed to, but in a way that felt on-brand and felt really specific to her personality," Allie explains.
We all know that Molly's fan base has grown to be so significant for her. "To be able to put the website in a way which is consistent with the rest of her style - shifting the site from "Oh, yeah there's a photo of Molly Go buy her cookbook' into something very significant, both inside and outside of the membership, brings an enormous amount of value" Allie muses.
"Something we've tried to do with all our clients is consider the things that it will be similar for them when we're not talking to them every day. We ensure that they have adequate systems to be able to use the software we've developed to them. Molly's case is a good instance of that." Matt agrees.
Future projects and more information
Matt and Allie have been working with sites and companies which require "a large amount of accessibility" to people with disabilities. "We're cooperating with truly amazing organizations who work to have these sites and prototypes approved by this group of individuals."
In general, they've been very lucky with their clients "It's an amazing experience to remain working with such great people. They are very thoughtful people and we always feel really respected," Allie concludes. "We get to work with very interesting individuals who's values guide their work. It feels good being able to create stuff that is for them," Matt smiles.
Find out more information about Allie Lehman and Matt Hart along with their team, as well as think about working with them, at thewonderjam.com or withwonderly.com.