When you hear the words "website development" in southeast Michigan, places like Ann Arbor, Royal Oak and Ypsilanti come to mind. DesignHub is trying to bring that same new economy name recognition to Saline.
The creative service and marketing firm gets most of its work through website development, the rest comes from things like creating brochures. It's a classic lemons to lemonade story: DesignHub's founders Karen Ragland and Ted Chesky founds themselves without employment after the firm they worked for closed its doors. Recognizing they had all the skills they needed, they put up their own shingle, continued working for clients that already knew them while starting to attract new ones.
Today, DesignHub's four-person firm will frequently scale up to as many as 10 to 15 people when things are really hopping. Ragland and Cheskey chose to set up shop in Saline because nearly a third of their business could be traced back to the area and available office space in Saline was competitively priced.
And business has been going well for the firm. It recently increased its client base from 25 to 35 regular customers, and if business continues to do this well, DesignHub expects to create another full-time job or two sooner rather than later.
"Things seem to be going that way," says Chris Kochmanski, a partner with DesignHub.
Source: Chris Kochmanski, partner with DesignHub
Writer: Jon Zemke
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