Stephen Graceffa is founder and president of ExNihilo Inc., a Providence firm that specializes in Web design, development and maintenance.
PBN: Why the name “ExNihilo”?
GRACEFFA: When I first decided I wanted to start my own company, I went through the same agonizing process all entrepreneurs go through: what the heck do I call it? Even then – in 1994 – a lot of good names were already taken in the domain system!
At the time, I was doing a lot of reading and taking a philosophy class, and was very interested in the concept of creation. Hence the Latin ex nihilo – “out of nothing.”
Sometimes, the best ideas and solutions seem to come out of nothing. It seemed to fit. Once they get it, people love it. But until then, they don’t know how to say it or spell it. It turned out to be tough to brand, but it is unique!
PBN: What is the biggest myth you hear out there about Web projects?
GRACEFFA: Someone once told me: “It takes nine months to make a baby. You can’t put nine women in a room for one month and get the same result.”
I think the biggest myths that get perpetuated make people think you can shortcut your way to success on the Web: It’s easy. It’s cheap. Anyone can do it.
Sure, there are a ton of user-friendly tools and templates out there, and individuals can do cool and very cost-effective things with them. But people run aground when they try to use those tools to create a specialized, customized business solution.
We often get called in to rescue projects that suffer from “shortcut syndrome.” They’re under-funded, under-staffed or just plain under-resourced for the amount of strategy and complexity they entail.
Your pal’s computer science-major nephew may be a great kid, but hiring him to build you a quick Web site is usually a mistake. All the free Web templates in the world can’t improve your bottom line without sound business strategy and expertise.
So we come in and do cleanup. Often that means starting over from scratch to make sure the business objectives are clearly defined. Unfortunately, the client winds up paying twice for the project. But their only regret is not working with someone like us from the start.
PBN: Do you have a favorite site? Which ones stand out to you as particularly well designed?
GRACEFFA: Anyone who knows me knows I spend a lot of time at Apple.com, both for the toys and for the user interface design. Their site is not only highly usable, it’s also perfectly aligned with their brand identity and their business objectives. And that’s what we always aspire to with our projects, as well.
After creating more than 600 Web sites, I have to laugh: I don’t think I could point to any one of them as my “favorite.” But that’s not a bad thing – they’re not built to appeal to me; they’re designed for specific business goals that meet the needs of our clients and their customers.
It’s a moving target because the Web changes all the time. There was a time when I loved CNN.com. Now, even though their design is technically quite good, it’s not clicking for me anymore.
For professional reasons, I spent a good deal of time researching each of CNN.com’s two most recent redesigns. They created great experiences – definitely among the best on the Web.
But their latest version is different. Clearly it follows best practices, but I must not be in their target demographic. They’re emphasizing a lot of video and interactive features. If I want that I’ll go to YouTube or Digg.
I think Facebook is actually well designed. They’re constantly making adjustments, some of which hit the mark and some of which don’t. It’s tough to make 400 million people happy!
PBN: You’re a virtual company, but you got hit by a very real-world problem with last month’s floods. What happened?
GRACEFFA: We may work in the virtual world, but we have very real office space – right on the riverbank on Charles Street. And it was sitting in more than two feet of water!
Fortunately, we follow our own advice and have a full disaster recovery strategy in place that enables us to continue business without missing a beat.
Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true for some of our clients, and we found ourselves working overtime to help keep them afloat. (So to speak!)
PBN: Your client list includes some big names like Textron, Citizens and Dell. How do you land large firms as clients, and keep them, as a small shop?
GRACEFFA: Most of our business comes from referrals. We’ve been very lucky in that regard, and never spent much time really marketing our services.
We keep them for three reasons:
First, our results. Our process virtually ensures it. Frankly, we absolutely, positively refuse to fail. We will do whatever it takes to make sure that we succeed and our clients succeed.
Second, our process and practices. Collectively, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of hours of experience at this. Our methods are pretty battle hardened. They meet the challenges of even the most demanding clients.
Because we have those fundamentals down cold, we can be very flexible and agile because we know what can – and can’t – be sacrificed. Large or small, we can scale up and down to suit the project and the company.
Third, our relationships. Even with our smaller clients, the types of projects we work on have a way of bringing out the best – and the worst – in people. They’re complex, they’re risky … people’s careers, and even entire businesses, can depend on them.
No matter how well you plan or scope a project, there will always be changes. I can pretty well guarantee that it’ll be harder than you thought.
You really get to know people under those circumstances, and I’m proud to say some of my best friendships have come out of them. •
