This month, we passed the milestone of 50 client websites under active management. I’m immensely grateful for the broad range of organizations and individuals that have chosen to work with Vibrant Content over the past nine years – from a research centre in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to Canadian author Thomas Homer-Dixon to a 37,000 acre ranch in Oregon. Nor can I forget our very first client, Zimbabwe-based charity Bopoma Villages, who essentially started when we did and has grown up alongside us in parallel. It is a profound joy to partner with people working towards the greater good, living out their faith, and caring for the marginalized.
From the beginning, I’ve had a goal of reaching 100 to 150 website clients. At that point, our docket would be full and we’d no longer seek new business. I never envisioned exponential growth or ever-expanding revenues: just a “long obedience in the same direction” with cumulative results – and knowing when to say when. Paul Jarvis’ recent book Company of One, gives voice to this idea of questioning unbridled business growth:
Growth, in a typical business sense, isn’t always a smart strategy if it’s followed blindly. Much of the research … suggest[s] that blind growth is the main cause of business problems. It can leave you with an unmaintainable number of employees, unsustainable costs, and more work than hours in a day. … Staying small doesn’t have to be a stepping-stone to something else or the result of business failure – rather than it can be an end goal or a smart long-term strategy.”
Vibrant Content aims to remain small but mighty. This allows us to retain the personal touch in website design – something that tends to get lost when you become a tech giant.