♠ Our Story ♠

We’re Dragonfly Networks, a profoundly different web development company located near scenic Loring Park, in the heart of Minneapolis. We focus on building clean, useful websites for clients who know the value of a dollar, and we take pride in working with clients who understand how technology can benefit them; we build websites that, frankly, are a bit more sophisticated than you’d find elsewhere.

Sure, there are plenty of other web design companies out there that will slap together a three or four-page website for your business, for a minimal investment, sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars. Or maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of building your own site, but think your money would be better spent on a copy of Dreamweaver or Flash, so you wouldn’t have to pay somebody else to build it for you.

Certainly, if there is one thing that there is no shortage of these days, it’s options. And I’ve seen the ads, too, and wondered if maybe we’re in the wrong field since we can’t even pretend to offer our services as cheaply as those competitors do. Seriously, how do they do it? Dragonfly Networks is an actual business, with staff, office space, bandwidth costs, cell phone bills, and plenty of other overhead.

I’ll be honest with you; our sites are not cheap. Nor are they poorly made. They won’t drive your customers away with garish designs or bombard anyone with pop-up advertisements. Our websites aren’t out-sourced to India, they are not automatically generated with the click of a mouse, either. (That would be cheating.)

Instead, our sites are hand-crafted from the finest software components. Think of the possibilities: your site could offer your clients (and potential clients) intelligent, clearly written information, with an easy to navigate architecture; with refined, balanced typography; with polished, coordinated color palettes. Your business can become a shining jewel that people will remember.

The people who visit your website will form an opinion almost immediately; do you want them to associate your identity with the clunky navigation, boring template-generated backgrounds, irritating pop-ups, and ugly, third-rate graphics? It is your brand that you will be representing; don’t make the mistake of trusting inexperienced, cut-rate “designers” just to save a few bucks.

It’s often occurred to me that a poorly-conceived site is sometimes worse than having no website at all. If the only impression that people carry away from their interaction with you is a poor one, how can you expect them to hold your business in high regard?

We’ve been fortunate to find the right kinds of projects lately, where we are able to add value to our client’s business by asking the right questions, working within their budget, and listening to the feedback we get on a continual basis. Our best clients have long-term relationships with us based on mutual respect and honesty. Even if those clients sometimes need to cut back on their expenditures for whatever reason, we still try to work with them to make sure they are getting sound advice and high-quality service.

I’ve been in the industry long enough to see some pretty shabbily made websites go live, and, although it can be comically, tragically amusing to see the results, I still feel a pang of guilt about letting people throw their money and reputations away. Seriously, it’s not funny to watch some of the absolute train-wrecks go live, especially when you know just how expensive that mistake is eventually going to be. Well, at least, it’s not that funny.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I guess what I’d like to emphasize is this: if you want the cheapest price on a website, go somewhere else – we’re busy enough as it is, and we have plenty of overhead between our offices, our server farm, and our bandwidth costs.

But if you really want the best that WordPress has to offer, we’re the right people for the project. We pondered the repercussions for quite some time before committing to the new brand (“the original ♠aces♠ of WordPress”), but what can we say?

It, er, suits us.

Mark Beihoffer
Chief Technology Officer
Founding Partner
Dragonfly Networks