What We Do

Company

Resources

Events

Blog

Free Consultation

ahoy@headway.io

(920) 309 - 5605

2 min
A Look Back at 2017
Subscribe

A Look Back at 2017

Andrew Verboncouer
Partner & CEO

2017 at a glance

While it’s always exciting to look forward at the newest and shiny goals, it’s equally as important to realize how far we’ve come.

20+

Project launches

+9

Crew members added

4

Addy awards

Behind the numbers

Extending our roots

While we always took a remote-first collaborative approach to work with clients from all over the world, we were all co-located at HQ. Our approach also allowed anyone to work from home, while traveling, or wherever life took them.

In 2017, we finally made the jump to hire outside of Northeast Wisconsin and brought on members from around the US. We’re still learning how to make the remote-crew experience better and more congruent with the local-crew experience, but strongly believe that people do their best work wherever they’re happiest.

Shout out to our remote crew, Tess in Albuquerque, NM, Gabi in Aurora, CO, Mark in Denver, CO, Tra in Madison, WI, Sam in Reno, NV.

Design apprenticeship

Advice For New Product Designers

Providing new career opportunities and helping level people up is close to our heart, so in August of 2017 we began our first cohort of design apprentices. Overall we consider the first program a success and definitely something we’re going to continue as part of our plan to teach and bring talent up.

Addy Awards

Judges Choice

While results and outcomes are our focus when we work with clients, it’s always great to feel a sense of accomplishment and be awarded by our peers.

We submitted 3 entries for this year’s ADDY Awards to our local chapter and ended up taking home 4 awards! Two awards were for the RISE application itself, one was for the RISE Case Study video, and one was for our Holiday Gift.

Continuous improvement & growth

We believe in practicing what we preach and continuously learning, improving, and keeping our compass set to what works. That means investing in new approaches, new processes, and new ways of thinking.

If you worked with us in early 2017 and you decide to work with us again now - you’d see a more mature, grown up Headway. By keeping our focus on what works, we always review what doesn’t, and while we aim to over communicate with our clients, sometimes we still have gaps in understanding. Our client and internal retrospectives really help us reflect on what needs the most improvement, what needs to be iterated on, and what can be removed from the process.

Community & impact

Bay Area Creative Club Teams

Being involved in our local community is extremely important to us. Working in the industry for so long, and with so many different startups, we’ve been exposed to approaches and processes that are far and few between where we call home.

I’m personally a co-founder of Digital Fertilizer, a non-profit organization that connects, engages, and empowers the high-tech community. I’m also the current standing President and looking to expand our reach.

In 2017, we started the Bay Area Creative Club with a mission of bringing together the creative ecosystem and key players together for quarterly competitions. We compete for a big traveling trophy that earns you bragging rights and a chance to continually defend it to bring it back to your home base. Not only do we bring the community together, for each quarterly event, we donate all of the proceeds directly to a local non-profit in the community that will then put it to good use.

If you’re in the area, a designer, developer, marketer, founder, entrepreneur, photography, artist, or otherwise - you need to join us! Sign up and make sure you register for our upcoming tournament.

Let’s make headway!

We can tackle any type of project, but we don’t work with everyone. We only partner with clients that align with our business values, can truly benefit from our expertise, embrace the systems we build in, and set our collective compasses to what works.

If you’re looking to gain confidence in your idea, build out your MVP to bring it to market, or grow your current business through customer-centered design and development, we’d love to work with you in 2018!


Asking Better Questions About Your Product

Download our free guide to begin implementing feedback loops in your organization.

By filling out this form, you agree to receive marketing emails from Headway.

Scaling products and teams is hard.

In this free video series, learn how the best startup growth teams overcome common challenges and make impact.

Scaling products and teams is hard.

In this free video series, learn how the best startup growth teams overcome common challenges and make impact.

You don’t need developers to launch your startup

In this free video series, learn proven tactics that will impact real business growth.

By filling out this form, you agree to receive marketing emails from Headway.

Make better decisions for your product

Dive deeper into the MoSCoW process to be more effective with your team.

By filling out this form, you agree to receive marketing emails from Headway.

A mindset for startup growth

In this free video series, learn the common mistakes we see and give yourself a greater chance for success.

By filling out this form, you agree to receive marketing emails from Headway.

The ultimate UX audit kit

Everything you need for a killer DIY audit on your product.

  • UX Audit Guide with Checklist
  • UX Audit Template for Figma
  • UX Audit Report Template for Figma

Enjoyed this post?

Other related posts

See all the ways we can help you grow through design, development, marketing, and more.

View All

Listen and learn from anywhere

Listen and learn from anywhere

Listen and learn from anywhere

The Manifest

Level up your skills and develop a startup mindset.
Stay up to date with the latest content from the Headway team.