My literal bestie came to me with an idea. She wanted to start a book club in Darwin because she couldn’t find quite the kind of space she wanted for book-loving people to get together.
And because every good idea apparently needs a logo, that was where I came in.
First the club, then the website
This was before I launched Homeground. I helped her create the original Book Besties logo and branding so the club had its own look and feel.
Fast-forward a few years and it had grown beyond meetups. There were bookish products to sell too, so we built a Squarespace website that could share information about events and give people somewhere to shop. Hats, pop sockets and all the fun stuff.
At that stage, Squarespace did the job. It gave the business a place of its own online without making things more complicated than they needed to be.
And then it outgrew the first website
Book Besties kept growing, and eventually the online store needed more than that original setup could comfortably handle.
So we worked together to move the business to Shopify, looking at the e-commerce strategy as well as the website itself. How the products were organised, how customers would find what they wanted and how the platform could better suit the business it had become.
I love that I’ve been able to work on this one from the ‘I want to start a book club’ conversation through to a proper online store. And I love even more that it’s my best friend’s business.
The website you start with doesn’t have to be the website you keep forever. Sometimes the smartest move is to build what you need now, then change it when the business gives you a reason to.