Terms
The Wonder Jam is "a family of brands who help entrepreneurs grow in a way that is soulful, shrewd, and spirited", in the words immortalized by Daft Punk, harder, more efficient, quicker and stronger. One of the companies, Wonderly, builds websites as well as visual branding tools and software for membership to help clients "set their own mark". I talked to the its managing Partner Allie Lehman and developer Matt Hart to find out more.
Fine art and freelance work for freedom
"My background is in the fine arts; I spent my childhood doing an abundance of drawing as well as oil painting" says Allie Lehman. "At high school I had an excellent art teacher who, funnily enough, suggested that I might be an illustrator or graphic artist'' even knowing nothing about what those things were! I decided to go with graphic design, and took it up in college."
Allie was a graduate during the downturn in 2009 and was employed in web hosting support. "It was quite stressful, however, I did learn a lot about servers, the process of how WordPress got installed, all things 'website'," she remembers. "In 2013 I launched The Wonder Jam, now the parent company of our business. I quit my design job and began working full-time for the company."
She had been collaborating along with Matt Hart for a couple years prior to this; he would code websites and she would create the websites. After that, they started working together much more often: "We've been working together for more than 10 years, both initially as freelancers. It was a natural collaboration. Now we focus on service-based businesses 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 users who were navigating the WordPress world the first thought was"We have to create CSS so that this theme can have the right color scheme'. It was very dull very quickly!" he smiles. When page builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor came into play, they gained flexibilities: "We could do things with a custom approach which was geared towards the particular demands of our clients and really satisfied us creatively."
Since the beginning of their partnership, Allie and Matt have concentrated on "going custom in a way which is cost-effective" according to Matt states: "We do only what our clients need and not what our clients don't. That's something our clients really care about: they don't want this to feel strange. They want to feel empowered. By using these tools let us accomplish that."
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Allie says: "In 2013, I started The Wonder Jam with my husband. We had started by freelancing for myself as a single individual freelancer. We had Matt as an developer contractor. We were looking to get work done, we wanted to pursue things our way, and we were looking for the freedom to do so." It was then that the Wonder Jam was born.
Systems, soils and support
"We reside in Columbus, Ohio and it's a really welcoming open area for small business," she continues. "Matt visited the city from Seattle and we began working with local clients. we would walk down the street downtown and see each of the businesses that we've collaborated with." In the year 2020, after seven years of The Wonder Jam and as they started to expand nationwide, they became the parent company, which now has three sister brands.
Wonderly focuses on service-based businesses that include authors, non-profits as well as fitness instructors, chefs and cooks. It also owns a brand called Basis that focuses on the retail industry and people selling products, and a third brand, Studio Wonder, an events space and photography studio in Columbus.
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The three brands offer a great deal of creative flexibility: "It allows our team to focus on what they really desire to achieve, and have individual processes to follow," Allie says. "Because Matt and I started collaboration from the very beginning, we have a decade of processes that we have mastered. I have pictures from 2017, of us drawing whiteboards on every step of our process, to ensure that our clients are really guided.
"The Wonder Jam operates as the "soil" that provides everything a small-scale business needs to have going on behind the scenes Each sister brand can'sprout' in its own way and does its thing with the opportunities that arise. It allows each of these pathways be clear and free of obstacles that can create difficulties for running a one- or two-person enterprise," Matt continues. "We are a group of companies which can work together."
For example, the Basis brand focuses on Shopify and online shopping, however, occasionally clients want to get blogging going and to offer something stronger than the one Shopify can offer. So Wonderly comes in to help the Basis client about processes that relate to WordPress. "We are able to support and communicate with each other and work as a unit even though each of us gets to be specialized in a manner which is satisfying for the individual," he smiles.
"The Wonder Jam sits as a supportive foundation; no-one is in charge of telling us who to work with or how much profit to earn - it's all entirely up to the managing partner," continues Allie. The brands have shared resources like software and project management systems and a service for clients. The management partners are able to book a project; The team members then take over the project, and also handle everything back-end administration like invoicing and contracts.
"It helps people such as Matt as well as myself concentrate on their work." Allie smiles. "I believe we've built an environment that is great for working in; it comes back to making sure that our customers enjoy great experience. If they email us we feel they're receiving prompt responses and they feel guided through the entire process."
Matt is in agreement: "We say we don't design for you, we make things in partnership with you. We're not going to go out for a while and make something without them. We meet a lot and let them see the process from start until the end. This is in contrast to leaving to our crafty rooms and making stuff all on our own!"
Contexts and clients
Matt and Allie collaborate with lots of different organizations that need their site accessible in lots of different ways. "Some of our customers are non-profits. They tend to be very robust sites. They're probably too complicated or they've existed for quite a while. Therefore, we tend to consolidate or condensing the sites so they can be simpler," Matt explains.
"We're in contact with those who want membership sites like those 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 those who've put a ton of their own enthusiasm, their time, and money into their business," she adds.
The Wonder Jam brands work with all kinds of organizations, from national nonprofits to single-person entrepreneurs that are transitioning into full-time work from their side business. "We've been trying to design solutions that meet the requirements of each. We're learning about what scales well as well as what needs to consider in a different way, when the scale is drastically different. This is a lot of fun to figure out!" Matt laughs.
He adds "With nonprofits, they usually have an established structure and have already figured out all of the legal hoops they had to go through. We'll often make this way feasible, since we're not looking to make a fresh start." The team can reframe the situation and find what context might move somebody to donate, and smooth out that process.
At the beginning of the partnership and with every single customer, regardless of their type of company and the size of the website, the Wonder Jam team talks about the concept of customer experience. "A site can be an instrument that's efficient in making a purchase, but it could also be really good at getting returning customers, or being an asset. It is often asked if this a resource, or could it help in fostering VIPs?' - which are the most valuable customers to small-scale businesses," Allie explains.
Matt and Allie Both agree that websites shouldn't try to be everything to everyone and it's crucial to be strategic. "Whenever we're creating one that is a member-based site, the number one thing we're thinking about is that we want people to come back and to use it all the time, and to feel that it's the most valuable experience they've ever experienced," Matt adds.
Case studies: Simi and Molly
Allie begins: "One of our clients, Simi Botic, has an exercise community as well as a participation in Unmeasured and is centered focused on body movement. It's called the Barre Method. Simi has such a compassionate view of "Just move instead of 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 on the site and were changed every week. "It lets things feel curated and allows for Simi to match what's practical with her schedule" Allie confirms. "After around two or three years, we expanded the number of members, giving her the opportunity to provide greater value to the people she serves this is awe-inspiring. We are thrilled that we're able to shift when our customers' needs change. we're just reassessing the layout, making a few minor changes before implement them in the development."
Another client, Molly Baz, wanted to transition from her existing platform to one that could be more brand-named and experiential. "Her aesthetic branding is fluid and unique to her. Her goal was for her followers to be able to 'live' in that style with recipes and updates as well as the exact type of information they are accustomed to however in a manner that felt authentic and really specific to her personality," Allie explains.
We all know that Molly's community has become so important to her. "To get it into a format that is in line in with her design aesthetic, and changing the website from 'Oh yeah, it's a picture of Molly and you can buy her cookbook' to something that is substantial, both inside and outside of the membership. This adds up to an enormous amount of value" Allie muses.
"Something we've tried to do with all our clients is think about the things that it will be like for them when they're not in contact with us every day. We try to ensure they've got adequate systems in order to make use of the tool that we've made for them - and Molly's was a great illustration of this," Matt agrees.
Further information, as well as future plans
Matt and Allie are currently working with companies and sites that require "a large amount of accessibility" for people with disabilities. "We're working with really amazing groups who are working in order to get these websites as well as prototypes, which are approved by the groups of people."
The majority of them agree that, overall, they've been very lucky in their relationships with clients "It's been amazing to just continue to work with really great individuals. Our clients are really thoughtful people and we always feel really respected," Allie concludes. "We have the privilege of working with very interesting individuals with values that guide their job. It's satisfying that we can create stuff that is for them," Matt smiles.
You can learn more on Allie Lehman and Matt Hart and their team, and think about working with them, at thewonderjam.com and withwonderly.com.