OpenForge is a Philadelphia based company that specializes in user experience, design, and application development. Their collective knowledge in design thinking, psychology, and software engineering enables them to find unique and creative solutions for real-world problems.
We caught up with OpenForge Founder Jedidiah (Jedi) Weller for an exclusive Startup Spotlight interview:
How did the inspiration to start OpenForge come about?
Our mission at OpenForge is to forge a bond between people and technology through digital experience and education. Most hiccups in the technology sector come from a lack of understanding and opaque communication during product development. Our goal as a company is to shine a light on the process, and help designers, developers, and business stakeholders work together more effectively. As a bonus, we build amazing products while we do it.
We pride ourselves in our hands-on and engaged process of application development, and in our community events and resources that allow us to share our knowledge with others so they may also make better products, worldwide.
How is OpenForge different from similar competitors?
For one, OpenForge is a registered benefit corporation with the state of Pennsylvania. We believe that community give-back comes first. As part of that, we host a series of events focused on education and open collaboration in the startup and technology sectors. Those events are the Startup Junto, Ionic Philly, and Angular Philly meetups.
In addition to building proprietary software for our clients, we also are constantly building open source resources to educate fellow community members on how product-ready applications are built and maintained. We often partner with other organizations, such as Ionic Framework and Strapi, to release software that showcases their technology.
VC, Angel Investors or Bootstrapped?
Bootstrapped all the way!
What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned so far?
There is nothing as important as diversity of opinion. We have a 3 person rule for every meeting in our company – there has to be at least 1 designer, 1 developer, and 1 business stakeholder in every product design or requirements meeting. This is so crucial because it allows each person to contribute their wealth of knowledge to the *business decisions* relating to product design. By working together, we can identify new and creative ways to reach our target market while identifying problems before any development begins
If you could have anyone in the world to your team, who would you choose?
My current team – they *are* the world 🙂 Seriously – the team we’ve built is so amazing to work with. I trust them completely – they are incredibly skilled, collaborative, and not afraid to express their opinions. Moreover, when working with our clients, they are passionate about the work and always go above and beyond to help them.
Especially when working with startups with whom we get to share the vision and help create something tangible. As a team of creators, there is nothing more exciting.
What are some unexpected hurdles you’ve faced?
Finding the right office space was very difficult for us. As a creative company that focuses on building digital experiences, having a collaborative space with plenty of room for all of our gizmos and gadgets is super important. We have a vast device library for testing, a little ‘super-computer’ for running automated tests, and more whiteboards and sticky notes than you can count.
When our team transitioned from Webjunto, we were initially able to utilize our old office headquarters until that lease expired; however, we needed more usable space. We tried out WeWork, but we didn’t get the sense of community that we were expecting – it was luxurious, but we were simply ‘cogs in a wheel’ and they didn’t have enough space for the team.
Finally, we entered into talks with the folks at 1776 and are proud to say we formed a fantastic partnership with them. Less than a month in and we are already so happy with the community and space at 1776, we’re looking forward to a large expansion at the various locations over the next 12 months.
Your favorite team building activity is:
Hah – this question is actually perfectly timed. We just got back from our company retreat in Washington DC, and we had a tonnnn of fun. One of the best team exercises that I think we’ve ever done was the “Lost At Sea” exercise.
We’re given a list of 15 items, and each person has to pick the top 10 to bring with them if they’re “lost at sea” and describe why. Then, we do the same thing again as a group.
Sure enough – the end result was that nearly everyone died alone, but as a group we negotiated, talked, and used our collective experience to pick a separate set of items that ensured our survival. It was the perfect exercise to showcase how working as a team trumps working alone, 7 days a week.
Where do you envision OpenForge in 5 to 10 years?
We’ve been leading the industry in collaboration & communication between disciplines, and I expect us to continue that and expand our physical footprint across the continental United States and Europe over the next 5 years.
Moreover, I hope to share and have other agencies and companies adopt our practices on software development and design. We’re shaking up the game a bit with our methodologies, and I’ll be speaking about this very thing in my talk “Why Developers and Designers need a common Language” at Developer Week in San Francisco in February. If you get a chance, stop on by!
The biggest thing you look for when hiring is:
We do things VERY differently when hiring. Instead of having an applicant come in for a 3-hour technical interview, stress out about memorizing “Cracking the Coding Interview” book, or other nonsense – we test their capacity to learn and their ability to follow process. Process. Is. Everything.
So, for both designer and developer roles, we offer a 2 day “open-source” assignment, in which we offer the applicants a chance to not only show us how they learn and perform but also give them an opportunity to benefit from that work as well. Everything they do they own and is open sourced – which goes hand-in-hand with our company values.
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs just starting out?
Be a creator, solve a problem, and give more than you take. Network nonstop, and follow up frequently to see how you can help others.
Business is truly a pay-it-forward relationship, and I can’t stress that enough. We’ve been successful because we’ve helped our partners and clients become successful. Look for those ‘win-win’ relationships.
There’s so much more I could say for advice; but rather than spill it out here I’d encourage any aspiring entrepreneurs to sign up for Startup Newsletter, or come on out to one of our in-person Startup Juntos. You can also follow along some of my ramblings on Medium.com/@jedihacks and Dev.to/OpenForge.
Thanks so much, and good luck to the entire community! For anyone that has any startup or tech related questions, I can be reached directly via Twitter @jedihacks.
