Rafferty Pendery Sometimes You Just Have to Do It Yourself

People have a multitude of reasons for starting businesses. I think one of the most unusual reasons for starting a business I've ever heard came out of an interview I had with Rafferty Pendery, owner and CEO of Studio98, a web design and development firm. My discussions with Mr. Pendery were an enlightening adventure into the heart and mind of a true entrepreneur.

In my interview, I asked Mr. Pendery what purpose prompted him to create Studio98.

He said, "To be perfectly honest, I created Studio98 out of sheer frustration. All I wanted was a web site for my clothing company. I started out just doing the usual, contacting various design firms to see how they could translate my vision of how I wanted my clothing line to be represented on the web. After numerous consultations with a wide variety of designers, I threw up my hands in frustration. I found that without exception every designer I interviewed was either unable or unwilling to duplicate my vision of what I wanted for my company's web site."

When I remarked on that being a pretty strong statement he shook his head and said, "It's not nearly strong enough. I'm a business owner and I can't express, at least in printable language, my upset and anger on being treated like I couldn't possibly know what my corporate image should look like. Most of these guys would look down their noses at me and blatantly infer that because of their technical expertise they and only they were equipped to make the decision as to how my company should be presented on the web. They didn't give a damn about my vision. It never entered into their equation. My vision is my concept of the essence of what my company represents. If those knuckleheads couldn't duplicate my vision then how in the world could they ever capture the essence of my company and display that essence on the web."

"So", I asked, "is that when you decided to start your own web design company"

"Well, that came to be the ultimate result of all this. At first I just set out to learn the technology of web design and development solely to create my own web site according to my own vision. I started reading everything I could get my hands on that dealt with this subject. There's a lot of data available on the subject, some good, some bad, some was workable, and a great deal was not workable at all. I ended up going up some blind allies. Once I had gathered up what I considered to be the correct, workable technology on the subject of web design and development, then I had to put it into practice and actually create a web site from scratch. The actual doingness turned out to be the best teacher. I found out for myself what works best. I also got a feel for exactly how long it takes and what tools work best to bring into existence a well crafted, aesthetically pleasing, search engine friendly web site. Then I created a web site for my company that was exactly what I wanted."

"Why then didn't you stop as soon as you had created your own web site" I asked.

I think Mr. Pendery's reply reveals much about his character.

He said, "I discovered I had more enthusiasm for web design and development than I had for my clothing business. I got up every day excited about learning more about this field and its' possibilities. I was amazed at all the potential there was for businesses that specialized in this technology. And I saw something new happening almost every day. Every web site is a new adventure, an opportunity to create something unique and provide a very valuable service. By the time I finished up my site I was flooded with requests from other business owners I knew, who had also suffered through the same experiences with other web designers that I had. For me it turned out to be the ultimate "win, win" situation. I now have the tremendous pleasure and satisfaction of unlimited creativity, providing a very valuable and in demand service and make a very good living doing it. I consider myself a very lucky guy."