Blue Flavor Flav!
September 27, 2005 | 
33 Comments
As some of you may know by now I’ve been working on getting a small business off the ground. This business, which goes by the quirky name “Blue Flavor”, hit a pretty major milestone last night: Our Web site launched!
So, I imagine you’ve got some burning questions? What’s Blue Flavor? Who’s involved? Why would I care?
Well, here’s the cliff notes:
Blue Flavor is an experience and Web design company formed by Brian Fling (Strategy, Mobile, Design), Matt May (Technology, Accessibility, Programming), Nick Finck (IA, User Experience, Analytics) and myself (Creative, Content, Development).
We’ve all got a similar philosophy towards work and technology. We’d talked off and on for a while about doing something and about a month or so ago, when the timing was just right, we decided to take a shot.
So far, so good. There is lots of work out there and we’ve already lined up a few small clients. Not too bad for not even having business cards yet, eh? That’s the next thing on the list.
We’re still working on sorting everything out and so far it’s been pretty fun, as well as educational and quite a bit of hard work. It’ll be interesting to see how it all works out and I’ll be sure and share along the way. Also be sure and check out the blog. I promise it’s not going to be a bunch of rehash from our other sites.
Want to know more? Check out blueflavor.com
Filed under: News
Keyword Tags: blue+flavor experience+design web+design business
Comments
1. Ryan Brill said:
Absolutely love the logo - who was responsible for that?
Good luck with the new company. I’m sure you guys will do quite well for yourselves. :)
Posted on September 27, 2005 09:27 AM | #
2. Scott said:
Absolutely love the logo - who was responsible for that?Indeed, it’s amazing. Very nice site you’ve put up, as well, Keith.
Posted on September 27, 2005 09:31 AM | #
3. Keith said:
Ryan – I like the logo too. Brian was the culprit. With a ton of, erm, “art direction” from the rest of the team. He designed the Web site as well, again with me hounding him the whole time. He did a really good job of taking our feedback and making something fun, usable and relfective of what we were looking for.
It’s could probably make a whole post, but as Brian can attest, having another designer as someone you’re beholden to can be a real pain. I mean, he, Nick and Matt were ready to move forward on another design for the site and I nixed it (cringe) causing us a bunch more work.
Still, I think we were all happier in the end.
Posted on September 27, 2005 09:32 AM | #
4. Jeff Miller said:
The new site and logo look nice!
I tried subscribing to your Atom feed but it keeps coming up blank in NetNewsWire.
Posted on September 27, 2005 09:33 AM | #
5. Keith said:
Jeff – Thanks for letting me know, I’ll get that looked into right away.
Posted on September 27, 2005 09:39 AM | #
6. Ryan Bates said:
Jeff, I had the same problem, but then I updated NetNewsWire to 2.0.1 (I was still using an older beta) and it then started working.
Posted on September 27, 2005 10:05 AM | #
7. Dan T said:
Nice job on that logo and site, they look great. Heads up; your privacy policy and copyright pages contain nothing but “foo”.
Posted on September 27, 2005 10:55 AM | #
8. Keith said:
Dan – Those aren’t live. Where did you find the links to them??
Posted on September 27, 2005 10:58 AM | #
9. Mike said:
Site looks fantastic man, I’m so glad it’s up and live.
We’re glad that we got our leaf logo out of the way before it became too passé ;) Now that you guys launched, let’s consider the organic leaf logo out like Trebuchet, starting….. right ……. NOW!
Posted on September 27, 2005 11:07 AM | #
10. Keith said:
Mike – You know the funny thing about the logo? We went through tons of comps and concepting work to get there. And we never once thought about anyone elses logo until AFTER we were done. Then we noticed others…
Based on that we made some small refinements. We almost ditched the leaf, but we’d all kind of grown to like it, and we didn’t have any direct competition or anything that had something similar. So we kept it.
Posted on September 27, 2005 11:23 AM | #
11. Jorgeq said:
Congratulations on your new company and project! It’s apparent that you truely take web design and standards seriously and now we’ll be able to see more of you work out there.
Posted on September 27, 2005 11:49 AM | #
12. Ryan Brill said:
We almost ditched the leaf…
Good choice not to!
Posted on September 27, 2005 11:49 AM | #
13. Bryan Veloso said:
Good luck to you guys. I always wanted to get my own firm off the ground and it’s great to see that people are living that dream of working for themselves. I expect great things to come out of this. :]
Posted on September 27, 2005 11:51 AM | #
14. Dave P said:
Blue Flavor is an experience and Web design company formed by Brian Fling (Strategy, Mobile, Design), Matt May (Technology, Accessibility, Programming), Nick Finck (IA, User Experience, Analytics) and myself (Creative, Content, Development).
So why do you say so on the website?!? :-)
It looks good, but I hate having to float around a company’s website trying to figure out what the heck they do. I mean, I know what you do, I read your site, but I wanted to know how it all fit together, and couldn’t really find the info. Just a thought, that’s all.
Best of luck to all four of you, I have no doubt that knowing your stuff as well as you do, things will be great! I look forward to getting a chance to see some examples of your collective work in action.
Posted on September 27, 2005 01:01 PM | #
15. Keith said:
Dave P – I’m not sure we could have been much clearer. Did you check the services page???
We tried to be pretty clear as to the services we offer. Or are you trying to see how we each fit into that? I’m a bit confused as to why you’re confused… ;0)
Posted on September 27, 2005 01:22 PM | #
16. Isaac Lin said:
Keith, I have to echo Dave P’s comment. If you expect most first-time visitors to already have a good idea of what your company does, like those coming from the link in your blog, then there isn’t any confusion. However, for someone coming in cold, the first thing they generally read are the headlines and the first few sentences beneath each. At the moment, they read as follows:
———-
Blue Flavor
Reason #5 to work with us
Complimentary Interview
A good working relationship is key to the success of any project. To that end we offer a complimentary 30-minute interview to all potential clients.
News & Events
Introducing…Blue Flavor
Blue Flavor Principals
It began, as many things do, as a dream.
In this case a shared dream of four guys with a lot in common.
Introducing…Blue Flavor
We’re four guys with a passion for our work. We didn’t come together by accident,
———–
There isn’t anything distinctive in this text to highlight what your company does, nothing to catch someone’s attention before they move on. For someone seriously trying to learn about your company, this doesn’t matter so much. However, if you are also trying to capture the interest of casual browsers, then I think you need to provide a bit more explanation up front.
Posted on September 27, 2005 02:21 PM | #
17. Yannick said:
Congrats and Good luck with the new company. You seem to have a great team and I am sure Blue Flavor will be successfull.
Peace and God Bless.
Posted on September 27, 2005 02:40 PM | #
18. Keith said:
Isacc – Thanks for the feedback. I’m not sure how we’ll address that and I’m not even sure if the casual browser is someone we’re looking to talk to, but you make some good points.
This is one of the reasons why I feel it’s best to launch a site and get feedback right away as opposed to waiting until everything is “perfect.”
For what it’s worth, I think the “homepage” is a bit of an outdated concept anyway. People hardly every just stumble across a home page. They’re either sent there, or they come in via a backlink. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are the new homepages on the Web.
Posted on September 27, 2005 03:11 PM | #
19. Ryan Irelan said:
NIce work! Congrats!
Could someone pass the blue koolaid!? :)
Posted on September 27, 2005 03:28 PM | #
20. Jim Renaud said:
I have to agree with Keith on this one. No one is coming to this page by accident. I assume they will be coming by recommendation, Google search, etc and somewaht know why they are going to this site.
When I get to the site it is refreshing and not all agency-ilke and pretentious like some other agency sites I’ve been to and admitably have built for client interested in only zip-bang-wow.
However, I do have to admit I am sucking up to Keith so that one day he will offer me a lucrative job offer running the Detroit office of Blue Flavor making websites for the auto industry.
Seriously, though, Congratulations are definitely in order. 1. You quit your job to follow your own dream 2. You are working with a great nucleus and collaborating with people you actually want to be talking to. 3. It looks like you are having fun right out of the gate.
Champagne! Follow that American dream!
Posted on September 27, 2005 04:26 PM | #
21. Dave P said:
Hey Keith,
I’ll elaborate a bit. When I followed the link, I knew who you were, and what you do. I was specifically looking for what you had set up, what your business specialties were, what areas of the web you focused on etc.
I hadn’t read the “cliff notes” you provided here as of yet, so I was relatively blind.
I ventured over to take a look at three things:
1. The look and feel. You’re skilled here, so I wanted to see how you presented the site. I wasn’t disappointed.
2. The team. I didn’t know you had collaborated with the other guys (as opposed to launch on your own) so the moment I saw the pic of the four of you I wanted to how you had set up the team, and who did what.
3. If I could hire BlueFlavor in the future. I’ve been recently promoted to PM, and we’re moving into developing a web based application. I’ve read a lot of your writing, and wanted to see the types of things you would focus on providing.
So here was my path:
> Looked at the page, liked it, determined that these guys can design websites
> Saw the picture, (#2), clicked on “About page” in the text. Went to about page and started reading.
> Noticed under “What is Blue Flavor… Really?” that you say a whole lot of stuff, but nothing that could answer my questions. Stopped reading at “experience economy” (for no particular reason)
> Scrolled back up and read what you believe in… still looking.
> Clicked back button and went home, noticed “reason #5”, read same and thought “Doesn’t everyone do this?” (honestly did) Figured I’d chalk it up to ignorance and lack of experience with outside firms, I work in-house mostly.
>Scrolled up and clicked on the Blog, reviewed stories and came back (was a sidebar, didn’t expect to find answers there) resumed search
> Clicked services, and started reading. I get the “rent an expert” bit, don’t know who “Ty Pennington” is so can’t place the reference. Still not sure exactly how you would fit in for my needs. Like the fact that prices are listed, but not sure I’d be willing to pay that, since I’m not sure what it entails.
> Scroll back up and read sidebar. Click “Expert for a day”. Intriguing concept, may be of use to me in the future. Scrolled down rest of list, didn’t click on any other links.
At that point I came back here, and I hadn’t answered questions 2 and 3. In all truth though, if I had a specific need, and not just a general idea, I probably would have emailed.
I read three more lines in your blog and found my answers in the quote that I copied in the last comment.
Just being honest here Keith, not trying to be an ass. Perhaps I just dislike marketing speak, and prefer a more direct approach (I know it’s not always feasible).
Hope my little personal traffic analysis helps you out a bit.
Posted on September 27, 2005 04:32 PM | #
22. Bruno said:
“For $2,000 per page, we’ll review your site and return a detailed report that shows how the pages you select can be improved.”
Can you examine my site Microsucksplease? just send me an invoice… LOL
Congratulations.
Posted on September 27, 2005 04:39 PM | #
23. Keith said:
Dave - Thanks for that, it is useful. To be honest we’re not going for marketing speak at all. It’s funny – you read the two parts of the site that I’ve yet to get a handle on. I think we might need to inject a bit more “what we do” into our about page.
I mean, I think the services page is pretty clear, but some people, like you might not go there right away.
This is why I keep saying content is so hard. We worked really, really hard on it and we know upon launching it wouldn’t be perfect. BUT, we also fully plan on making adjustments based on feedback like this.
Pay attention everyone, you’re seeing one of the things we really beleive in – Taking feedback seriously and trying to make the most out of it. It’s key to a successful experience on the Web.
Hopefully we can work the site so that people won’t be confused as to what we can offer. It’s not purposefully vague, but at the same time, it can be a bit of a challange to explain.
Posted on September 27, 2005 04:45 PM | #
24. Dave P said:
Keith - Quite frankly, your linked pages off of the services page tell me exactly what I was looking for. Problem is I never made it that far on the first go around. Such is life.
Question, more so about the business than the site: Who is your target customer, as in who do you speak to?
I’m gathering that you are positioning yourself to speak to in house IT/Web/Design/Marketing departments that commonly get saddled in SME’s with doing web development, rather than the CEO or a company needing a website. (I know I’m being a little narrow here.)
It just dawned on me that acting as an “expert resource” is an excellent, untapped market! Nice Work!
Posted on September 27, 2005 05:21 PM | #
25. Keith said:
Dave – Yes, exactly right. I mean, we’d talk to a CEO who came calling, but that’s not the target. I guess another audience would be the kind of person we’d all be if we were “in house” – Program managers like my old boss at Childrens. People like that. Most of these people have a decent idea of what’s what.
That’s why it’s important we be as clear as possible. I mean, we also want to engage people in conversation about what they might need help with, but we don’t want to waste anyone’s time.
The hard part is that we really do lots of different things. I mean, we can, and probably will, do things like standards-based coding and such. But our focus is a bit more “in the head” – IA, design, usability, accessiblity, strategy, teaching and such.
We want to be an end-to-end solution, but if there were a preference I think it’d be towards the upfront work. We also want to stay small, and partner up if/when we need to.
While we have a fair idea of where we are headed and where we want to go, we’re also taking it slow and learning as wel go about the business end of things.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Posted on September 27, 2005 05:35 PM | #
26. Nat said:
I love the design, but i have to echo most of Dave’s concerns. I read pretty much the entire site (slow day at work) and I think that it is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, though I guess I would be in your target audience.
My main concern is that in my position (Interactive/Art Director at an ad agency) I’m the one making a recommendation, but I don’t have the final say in bringing in outside people. If I were going suggest using you, I would have to run it by at least the Creative Director and an Account Manager, and depending on the importance of the client (or if it is forour site), the President and VP of Account Services. Plus there is the potential that someone on the client side may need to approve it since they are ultimately the ones who will be paying. If I just sent a link to these people and said “I’m thinking we should use these guys” most of them will have no idea what you do based on the homepage, and won’t devote enough time to click around and find out more.
I don’t think you need to add much. It could be as little as a sentence or two. Just something to make them say “oh, okay. I see.” and click the services link. As it stands now, I think most of the people I mentioned above would pretty much follow Dave’s path, except I doubt they’d make it past the second click.
Also, I really don’t understand the Complimentary Interview thing. It almost seems like a negative to me.
My first thought, like Dave, was “doesn’t everybody?” How else would a business relationship develop without an initial conversation/interview? My second thought was “only 30 minutes?” I’ve had first interviews with potential vendors/clients/consultants that lasted 4 hours with plans for a follow-up. Do I have to start paying if we talk for an hour? What if I need 3 interviews before I’m sure? I don’t expect to have the undivided attention of all 4 of you for an unlimited amount of time, but I also don’t want to feel like I have to make a decision in 30 minutes.
I think at some point it would also help to add some case studies to the clients section. I know it’s probably not possible at this point, but once you’ve been at it for a while, it would be really useful to see some concrete examples of how you’ve helped people, since a lot of what you do is sort of abstract stuff to the non-target-audience audience.
And here are my really nit-picky comments:
On the About page, the “What is the experience economy?” section kind of comes out of nowhere and is hard to follow. I had to read the paragraph 3 times before I understood it, and I still didn’t know who Gilmore and Pine were until I read the entire section and then the whole sidebar. I think the 2nd 3rd and 4th sentences here are so over-simplified that it is hard to follow. It also seems weird grammatically.
On the services page, the double-dashes around “every step of the way” should be em-dashes. Same thing in your profile on the bio page.
On the Contact Us page, it should read “…send us a Request for Proposal…”
Also, somewhere there is a “to” that should be “too” but I can’t remember where now. Maybe you already found it.
I don’t mean for this to be so hyper-critical, and I certainly didn’t intend to write this much when I started the post. I actually like the site a lot. Both visually and the content.
Posted on September 27, 2005 10:24 PM | #
27. Keane said:
Some more feedback for you:
First, I agree with a lot of what Dave P and Nat are saying – it also took me a little while to get a handle on the services Blue Flavor are offering.
I particularly agree with what Nat is saying about the Experience Economy section of the About page: I’m guessing that the ‘experience economy’ angle is a major selling point, but, because it’s jargon, it’s a difficult concept for the average reader to follow. I don’t know who Gilmore and Pine are (and I can see I’m not alone in this from previous comments), but they’re mentioned casually in the text. My reaction when reading an ‘About’ page shouldn’t be ‘I don’t understand this’ or ‘Why should I trust Gilmore and Pine?’. A rewrite like this would work for me:
“Companies struggle to stand out from the crowd, partly thanks to the excess of advertising in traditional media. People have become unaffected by targeted messages. We believe the way to attract and keep customers is to provide them with experiences. This is the experience economy.”
Basically, tell me what you believe, not what Gilmore and Pine believe.
On the subject of the ‘#5 reason to choose Blue Flavor’, when I read that, my reaction was ‘ok, and what are the other reasons?’ but I couldn’t find any way to find out what the other reasons are (are they in there somewhere?).
Ending on a positive note, (other than the aforementioned criticisms!) this site is an excellent example of content written in clear, plain English, with a clean, unobtrusive design. Great work.
Oh, and I don’t know who Ty Pennington is either, but don’t read too much into that – I’m in the UK and reckon this is a US-centric cultural reference, so probably suits your market.
Posted on September 28, 2005 03:23 AM | #
28. Jim Renaud said:
I like the cultural references to Ty Pennington (even though he’s sooo annoying on those Sears’ commercials) and others, but maybe like some fun rollover on the name for those uninformed of the countless home improvement programming my wife has on the television, ad nauseum.
I think a PDF one-pager would be ideal for people like me (In-house Creative Director) could print off or attach and show my Veeps if I needed your services. Maybe a one-pager overview and one-pagers on each major topic.
Dave is right on though. I totally forgot that people like me are much easier sells for your services becuase it save us time and frustration, but people like my bosses who would actually approve the cash might need the more concrete stuff. So in reality you are selling to one audience and backing up to another.
I imagine you will get a lot of 2 interviews. One interviewing people like me who know what is needed and how we could use your help. And then the second interview with me and my boss where you’d do more of a reassuring sell job on the purse strings.
The blog is a great tool to keep people like me interested in what you guys do and are up to in a non-sales way. Maybe the site itself should be straight-forward in what you can do. I think all you would need is to reference the service section in the body copy somewhere becuase I think that page accomplishes this.
Posted on September 28, 2005 08:35 AM | #
29. Mohamed Marwen Meddah said:
Good luck with the new company :)
The design and logo are really cool.
I wish you the best.
Posted on September 28, 2005 08:52 AM | #
30. Keith said:
Dave, Nat, Keane & Jim – I love this feedback. For a few reasons. One it’s very helpful and two, you guys are picking up on some of the things that bothered me and haven’t been tackled yet. The content for the site is a rather long story. It’s gone through several hands and this weekend I went back and redid much of it.
With the full intention of touching it again after we’d had some feedback. We talked last night and we’re going to addressing some of this stuff directly in the next few days.
Thanks again!
Posted on September 28, 2005 10:05 AM | #
31. Isaac Lin said:
A quick note about “Reason #5” – when I couldn’t connect it with any pointer to a complete list, or an indication of more reasons to come, I thought I was missing some kind of easter egg to reward frequent visitors (who would gradually get to see all the reasons). If this is the case, or if there is some other reason to put it into context, it would be nice if it would be explained (or a hint given).
Regarding the content on your front page, the timeworn question, “Who is your audience?” applies.
If you expect to get most traffic through direct referrals, or through specialized directories for web design, then people probably already have a good idea what you do, and you don’t need to be too explicit up front.
If you think you will get a lot of visits through search engines, then bear in mind the visitor is wading through a massive list of links trying to find a relevant one, and trying to do so as fast as possible. It would be helpful to give them a quick one-line description of your company that can be easily found.
If you expect to get traffic through lists of links on other people’s pages, like the one on Mike Davidson’s blog, then again it may help to provide some quick indication of your company’s purpose.
For me, I was 99% sure I knew what your company is doing – yet I started doubting myself when the first few sentences I read were rather vague. Once I dug down into the About page, my suspicions were confirmed. Personally, I think even if you expect most visits to be through referrals, it is always reassuring to your site’s visitors to give them some quick confirmation that they are where they want to be.
Posted on September 28, 2005 02:17 PM | #
32. J. J. said:
Since most people are commenting suggestions here as opposed to your A Blue Flavored Blog intro, a small recommendation for the blog:
Have the entry dates listed on the main blog page and archive pages (I see it on the blog entry pages, just not anywhere else). Integrating it into your URLs may not be what you’re going for, but I personally like blog URLs with at least the month indicated. By the way, I’m really digging the Asterisk redesign, too; you’re doing well in the web world, Keith!
Posted on September 29, 2005 08:23 AM | #
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