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Whit Gurley

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Owner, Creative Director, Angled End Identities

98 points

Fourteen year veteran of the graphic design industry, ten year art director for a 400-employee software company and owner of a successful design studio.

March 26, 2012

Whit Gurley and 7 other people answered this question

What are the best ways to advertise and promote a business in a small town?

The ubiquity of Craig's List varies from city to city, but if you happen to live in a town with reasonably active CL usage (or close to a metropolitan city) then you might consider posting a free ad 1-2 times per week. We've been doing ... more

Local Advertising

March 23, 2012

Whit Gurley and 6 other people answered this question

What is the best way to communicate to clients that you are raising your rates?

I agree with pretty much everything mentioned here, and I figure I can answer the question in a different way - I'll post my rate hike letter! Our rate jumped 50% a couple of years ago, which only daunted three of our clients, two of ... more

Customer Service

Feb. 9, 2012

Whit Gurley and 7 other people answered this question

How should a new company advertise if it has a limited budget?

My company is far from new, but Craig's List continues to be a source of leads. Granted, we only tend to get around 1-2 leads per month, but that's easily worth the cost of admission: no money and between 5 and 30 seconds to repost ... more

Repair Business

Jan. 20, 2012

Whit Gurley and 5 other people answered this question

What is more important for a company: a well designed logo or a good chosen name?

Though it goes against the grain of my own company's services, I'm inclined to agree with this. I strongly disagree with those arguing that the logo is unimportant for the growth of your company (from my perspective, anything representing your company that reads as "pro/successful" ... more

Branding & Identity

Jan. 2, 2012

Whit Gurley and 2 other people answered this question

What capabilities are lost when building a corporate website using Wordpress instead of Drupal?

I agree that the origins of Drupal/WordPress point to a difference in their methodology, but as the owner of a company who uses it as the CMS for some very robust B2B websites, I don't find that to be relevant. I will concede, however, that ... more

Content Management

Web Development

Dec. 22, 2011

Whit Gurley answered this question

What are your favourite HR blog posts of 2011?

I've been pretty impressed with what Murray Resources is doing:
http://www.murrayresources.com/blog/page/2/
I feel like they're doing a great job of offering valuable content at both ends of the HR spectrum (hirer to hiree), and both the writing and presentation are clean and easy to absorb. more

Human Resources

Dec. 1, 2011

Whit Gurley and 7 other people answered this question

Local online advertising: what are the most common ways to advertise locally online?

Just want to throw in a quick plug for Craig's List here. I've been advertising my business three times a week for a few years now, with great success. It's free and only takes a couple of minutes (if that) to repost your ad, so ... more

Local Advertising

Online Marketing

Nov. 15, 2011

Whit Gurley and 1 other person answered this question

Will you use one or both of bitly's new services that they launched?

Assuming that's not a joke... the Wikipedia entry for the company suggests that Bitly is not actually a Libyan company, they just chose to use that domain extension. more

Online Marketing

Oct. 7, 2011

Whit Gurley recommends this answer by Mark Herbert

What is the one business characteristic that you would like to mimic of Steve Jobs?

Jobs has a great deal of passion and perserverance. When he first conceived of where we wanted to take Apple and the world they weren't ready- he stumbled and lost control of the company. He perservered and as a result played a significant role in ... more

General Management

Oct. 4, 2011

Whit Gurley is now following Matt Certo and 3 other people

Aug. 16, 2011

Whit Gurley and 2 other people answered this question

Why do you choose to "like" a brand on Facebook?

I Like a few companies/brands because I'm interested in their content, but I think that most of the time it's either because I'm trying to support my graphic/web design clients who happen to have a FB page it Twitter feed, or I just want to ... more

Social Business

Aug. 10, 2011

Whit Gurley recommends this answer by Stafford Williamson

If you participate in Twitter chats, what do you see as the biggest value/benefit?

By following particular hashtags (e.g. the #subject of interest) I am able to sometimes keep up with the latest news in a field of study, the evolution of a policy, or international developments. Sometimes serious chat groups organize to discuss their topic at certain times ... more

Human Resources

Information Technology

Aug. 7, 2011

Whit Gurley recommends this answer by Sandra Gans

Aside from the major social networks, what other social sites do you use for business?

YouTube and VideoJugg are great for getting information via video. Focus is obviously excellent for getting free business information. HubSpot has an enormous amount of free information on their web site for people looking to enhance their inbound marketing via social media marketing - see ... more

Customer Service

Aug. 4, 2011

Whit Gurley and 6 other people answered this question

What web hosting company do you host with and why?

+1 for Bluehost! We've been using them for about a decade and have no complaints. Great price, great service. more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Online Business

July 19, 2011

Whit Gurley and 5 other people answered this question

Need web design company

Hello Sophie,
Depending on your budget, my company may fit the bill: Angled End Identities, http://angledend.com
Drop me a line if you have any questions.
- Whit more

Corporate Website

June 29, 2011

Whit Gurley and 6 other people answered this question

What are some examples of the best Wordpress business websites?

Well, if everyone else is tooting their own horns, then I'll do the same. :) This is a site that my design agency designed from the ground up and built a WP theme based on that design: http://mindoverbar.com
WordPress sites don't have to be based on ... more

Information Technology

Content Management

June 8, 2011

Whit Gurley recommends this answer by Jordie van Rijn

Should companies be putting an email newsletter signup box on every page of their website?

Many people will be visiting your website from a search engine and will not be landing on your homepage at all. So if you want them to see and act on your newsletter sign-up, yes put it on all pages.
Two things to consider:
* If the ... more

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Program

April 6, 2011

Whit Gurley and 1 other person answered this question

What information do you wish you could measure that you don't have access to right now?

I feel like an inherent gap in the graphic/web design industry is a way to quantifiably show improved sales due to the benefits of strong branding and design. I'm skeptical that this is really possible, but I'm all ears if anyone has any ideas. :) more

Customer Service

Information Technology

March 31, 2011

Whit Gurley and 2 other people answered this question

What are the best practices for designing mobile-optimized websites for access via Smartphones?

I have to give a quick shout-out on this topic to Mobile Web Up, which helps businesses maintain an always-ready mobile presence without requiring any customization work on their end (I am not in any way affiliated with this company, but I have met the ... more

Information Technology

March 4, 2011

Whit Gurley and 12 other people answered this question

What is one feature of modern websites that you think should be abolished?

Sadly, I agree. Given that Flash is a (mostly) closed platform and that HTML5 is theoretically an functional replacement, I do think we need to migrate away from Flash. However, there's nothing ready to replace it just yet; there is no "pro" HTML5 authoring system ... more

March 3, 2011

Whit Gurley recommends this answer by Dan Pepper

Has anyone used Hubspot's Website Grader?

If HubSpot Grader.com hadn't come along, *the market would have had to invent it.* Grader.com serves several purposes:
1. Internal Use - Grader.com points you to places where you should focus your efforts on driving traffic to your site. You can also use the tool to ... more

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