My wife and I had a great Valentine’s Day. It was relaxing, and we made our own pasta from scratch from simple ingredients – flour, eggs, salt, etc. After the pasta was done, we made our own pasta sauce too.
What does making pasta have to do with a custom website?
Well, I thought it would be a good way to explain the different types of websites and how others can use the word “custom” carelessly…it’s a buzz word and it sounds good. It makes money, so why not use it?
What does custom really mean to you? Some website providers / developers / designers will tell you it’s between picking out between these handful of choices. They’ll “custom”ize the colors and add your logo to the many other sites they’ve done that look pretty much exactly the same as yours. For some, that’s the kind of website they want – it’s a quick turn around, less decision making, very affordable, and has all or most of the features you may want. It’s like going to the grocery store, taking 2 packages of Pillsbury cookie dough, mixing it together, baking it, and calling them custom cookies. It’s kind of true, and it took some time and thought to make that batch, but it’s not really “custom” – however, they are providing the service to you – making a website.
The Nevis Technology Difference
Custom web development to Nevis Technology means something different. Yes, it can mean creating something similar, and using some helpful tools to make the administration (the way you maintain the site) and development process faster (using “widgets” that have been created before). But custom isn’t about settling. If you want your site to be able to do something, or look a certain way, or if you need fine tuned adjustments to suit your needs, we can do that. If you need to integrate into 3rd party tools like MailChimp, your CRM, or a legacy back end system used in your business, we can do that.
Custom development can also be coming in on a project and putting in a patch that wouldn’t otherwise be there to fill a client request or enhancement on an existing website.
Whether you’re looking to start from scratch or if you have a custom site now that needs some features added, or a fresh look, Nevis Technology can deliver. Here are some case studies of previous projects.
- Harris Funeral Home -Funeral Questionnaire
- Completely custom, every single line written, from the front end questionnaire to the back end administration. Design by a 3rd party, implemented by Nevis Technology.
- PetPassages New
- Previously built custom site on the Code Igniter framework. Front end template built to fit in the current affiliate requirements, features added, back end administration updated for affiliates to maintain the new features.
- Pet Passages (Phase 2)
- Financial Symmetry – Client Center
- This Dashboard interfaces with FSI’s proprietary, legacy, internal system to give their clients access and take action on their advisor recommendations, see their “score”, and the history of that score.
- Financial Symmetry – Client Center (Phase 1)
- Financial Risk Group
- Nevis Technology worked with FatCat Strategies. FRG didn’t want to invest in completely renovating their site, but wanted the current website to be easier to maintain. They suffered from login overload – each feature on their site required a separate login and system. We created a solution custom to what FRG wanted and they are now happy with an easy to administer website.
- Financial Risk Group (Phase 1)
- Professional Window Cleaning and Powerwash Inc
- A local business and simple design, but created from the ground up to ensure an efficient and minimal, fast-loading website.
A few more examples
Just like you can go to a restaurant and buy a pasta dish – you’re limited to their selection and maybe “custom”izing a few things, like “can I add mushrooms?”. A little more custom, you can go to the grocery store, buy a box of pasta, and numerous brands of numerous types of sauce, creating the dish yourself. You can also build the pasta dish from scratch with some simple ingredients and have it exactly the way you want it from the ground up.
Another example, if a car detailer said they would provide you a “custom” detailing on your vehicle, the only way that would be true is if they created their own waxes and cleaners in-house.
TJ’s, the owner of Nevis Technology LLC, grandfather was a welder. He did build custom creations by taking raw materials and putting them together for a custom solution to project specifications. Instead of giving the client only certain options within what could be done easily with a pre-built solution. An example of the pre-built, non-custom solution, would be to trim a wrought iron rail to be shorter, but not building and curling the wrought iron rail itself. The raw materials and some elements, like screws and bolts, are pre-built, but overall, the majority of the project was custom built as needed. The same thing with web development. We reuse code from previous projects to save time, but that’s still considered custom because it was built from the ground up initially, versus us just buying some code and working within the parameters of that plug-in or add-on.
True Custom Development
With custom web development, anything can be done it just depends on how much you want to spend and how much time you have versus somebody who calls himself a web developer but gives you a bunch of “no” answers because that doesn’t fit the prebuilt theme. The way Nevis technology works is we give you options between custom development and pre-built solutions depending on your time range and budget will give you options that makes sense for what you’re looking for.
Nevis Technology specializes in fully custom solutions, we dabble in low-cost solutions to fit a client’s need (semi-custom) and eventually we’ll get into the product space to provide even lower cost, but less choice, solutions. That way we can offer the right solution for our clients no matter their budget or expectation.