Whilst I strongly advocated for a professional shot here, this one was chosen by committee – Andy Boundy
VRB Internet Solutions was started by Andrew Boundy as a concept in early 1998 with some newly available HTML editing software. In reality, at this time, the web design business was not well-formed and the largest obstacle to acquiring clients was having them understand why the Internet was important. Fun times!
Andy is a university Business Management grad, has worked in sales & management since the mid-80s and has been programming since the days of BASIC in 1981. At the end of the 20th century, it was time to see if this new Internet industry could be matched with a solid business model.
In 1999, VRB was formed as a full-time business with (just) enough clients to pay the bills and an office in a broom closet. In 2002, following a few years of consistent growth, VRB was incorporated as VRB Internet Solutions Ltd.
In 2003, it was obvious that Andrew’s talents in sales, marketing and strategic planning were much better than his coding and design capabilities, so we grew to include new, incredibly talented people with skills that seriously upped our game. Furthermore, we started experimenting with PHP/MySQL which took us quickly from static designers to application-capable. Now we had a team who could consult at any business level, plan strategic and operational solutions, design beautiful interfaces, code them and deploy using resources that we had substantial experience in.
VRB now designs and maintains hundreds of client sites throughout North America as well as several well-known systems and apps.
So, onto the pitch … every text should have a purpose and this one is to tell you who we are, what we do and why we do it better than the other guys.
VRB is, as it ever was, a web design company committed to giving businesses competitive advantages on the Internet. This includes marketing and informational sites, data-driven systems for inventory, sales and communication as well as all associated services which apply to this industry. Technology has changed greatly in +/-20 years, but our mission has not.
Over the years, through partnerships and interest, we have come to specialize in the jewellery sector. We give seminars and provide systems to jewellers and jewellery manufacturers in the US and Canada.
We have three major competitive advantages.
- We apply extensive business knowledge to our solutions, meaning you get a business and marketing consultant embedded in the project, not just a tech or graphic designer. This is critical to a project’s effectiveness because techs don’t involve themselves in marketing, sales, communications, implementation, regulations and efficiency because they are skilled techs, not business experts.
- We deal in long-term relationships, not single-sale projects. We have clients who have been with us since our very early days and our referral rate is enviable by any standard. Some clients are on their 4th or 5th design update with us. After nearly 20 years of operation, we have the record to overcome the unfortunate (but often deserved) “hit-and-run” reputation the web design industry gained over the years. We stay with our clients and they stay with us.
- From the outset, VRB has fully leveraged the flexibility of Internet workflow. Our people work from their locations and on their own time, thus massively reducing fixed and administrative costs. We are paperless, cloud-based and extremely flexible, meaning we can adapt to almost any trading climate. We pass these cost-savings on to our clients.
In short, we know what we are doing because we are educated, experienced, creative and we do exactly what we say we are going to do, on an agreed budget, 100% of the time.
PS. If you got this far, you may be interested that “VRB” are the initials of my parents,
without whom none of this would have happened – Andy Boundy.
