Please introduce your company and describe your role as CEO within the organization.
Temper And Forge is a web design, development, branding, and marketing firm that operates as an operational partner to the organizations we serve. We build and support digital infrastructure that powers growth, from brand to web to search and paid media.
As CEO, my role is to protect standards. I focus on precision, partnership, and quality. I stay involved in strategic direction, team composition, and client alignment to ensure every engagement reflects our commitment to being embedded partners, not outside vendors.
What is your company’s core business model – do you use an in-house team, third-party vendors, or a hybrid outsourcing approach?
We operate with a fully in-house, U.S.-based W-2 team.
That decision is about consistency as much as quality. Our clients rely on us as operational partners. That requires stable teams, structured service levels, and institutional knowledge that builds over time.
By investing in full-time team members with strong benefits and long-term growth paths, we are able to support clear SLAs and take an embedded role inside the organizations we work with.
What are the primary industries or sectors you serve, and how has that focus evolved over time?
We serve higher education, ed tech, med tech, medical practitioners, healthcare data organizations, CPG brands, venture-backed companies, financial services firms, and Venture Capital firms.
Over time, we have increasingly worked with organizations operating in complex regulatory and multi-stakeholder environments. These clients value governance, performance, scalability, and structured execution.
What are the most in-demand services or solutions that clients approach your company for?
Most clients initially approach us for custom website design and development. For many organizations, the website is the center of their digital ecosystem and often the most visible representation of their brand, infrastructure, and growth strategy.
Beyond website builds, there is strong demand for technical SEO, AI discovery optimization, paid media management, and long-term digital infrastructure support. Increasingly, clients are not just looking for a site. They are looking for a partner who can structure how they are discovered, how they convert, and how their digital systems evolve over time.
For enterprise and growth-stage organizations, the conversation often shifts quickly from a single deliverable to an integrated operational relationship. That is where we do our best work.
How do you personally stay ahead of industry shifts when most data is already yesterday’s news?
We serve higher education, ed tech, med tech, medical practitioners, healthcare data organizations, CPG brands, venture-backed companies, and financial services firms.
Over time, we have increasingly worked with organizations operating in complex regulatory and multi-stakeholder environments. These clients value governance, performance, scalability, and structured execution.
Do you have a significant percentage of repeat clients? If so, what strategies contribute to that loyalty?
The vast majority of our clients view us as operational partners, which naturally leads to repeat and retained work.
We rarely structure engagements as one-time production projects. Our best work happens when we are embedded in an ongoing capacity, advising, optimizing, and evolving systems over time.
Clients seeking a purely transactional production role are generally not the right fit. Our contracts are repeatable because our relationships are long-term by design.
How do you measure and ensure high customer satisfaction in your operations?
It starts with team composition and how we support our people contractually.
If you want consistent work, you need a consistent team. That is why we focus on W-2 employment and provide strong benefits and infrastructure. People need to feel secure and invested in order to produce exceptional work.
We also protect our pipeline carefully. By managing capacity intentionally, we ensure every client engagement receives the time and attention it deserves.
What kind of post-project support do you provide to address client queries or ongoing needs?
For larger builds, we typically transition into a blended design and development support retainer that allows the site to evolve alongside the organization.
Many clients also rely on us for paid media management, SEO, and AI discovery optimization.
Our most effective engagements combine these disciplines into a unified operational retainer so strategy and execution remain aligned over time.
Describe your pricing and billing structure – is it fixed cost, pay-per-milestone, or another model?
Operational support plans are structured as fixed-term, fixed-cost retainers with clearly defined scope and expectations.
For scoped builds, we establish a defined project rate based on scope and duration, typically billed against production milestones.
This structure provides predictability for both the client and our internal team.
What is the typical price range for projects you’ve handled in the past year, and how do you balance affordability with value?
Most website projects range between $40,000 and $150,000 or more, with some enterprise engagements exceeding $500,000 depending on complexity.
We balance affordability with value by being disciplined in scope and intentional in execution. We do not overbuild, but we also do not under-engineer. Our focus is on durable infrastructure that justifies the investment over time.
Have you turned down projects based on budget or scope? If so, what are your minimum requirements?
Yes.
To properly support our clients and protect our existing engagements, we are highly protective of our bandwidth.
Sometimes the distinction is budget-based. Other times it is philosophical. If a prospect is looking for a low-cost, high-speed production resource without strategic or operational input, we are not the right fit.
We are structured for partnership, not transactional output.
What key challenges has your company faced in the last few years, and how did you overcome them?
Scaling while maintaining quality has been our most significant challenge.
The hardest part of growth is saying no, especially to opportunities that appear attractive but do not align with our long-term standards or capacity.
We addressed this by formalizing processes, strengthening leadership, and maintaining discipline in how we qualify and onboard new clients. Growth must be sustainable to be meaningful.
How do you foster innovation and adapt to emerging trends in your industry?
Innovation for us is structured, not reactive.
Because we operate as operational partners, we are constantly inside real data, real user behavior, and real business constraints. That gives us the ability to test emerging technologies and strategies in controlled, measurable environments rather than chasing trends at a distance.
We also invest heavily in our team. Our staff is encouraged to explore advancements in AI, search behavior, automation, performance engineering, and design systems. We create space internally to experiment, prototype, and pressure test ideas before they are deployed at scale.
Most importantly, we stay disciplined. Not every new tool or shift deserves adoption. We evaluate trends through the lens of precision, durability, and long-term value for our clients. Innovation only matters if it strengthens infrastructure and improves outcomes.
What role does company culture play in your success, and how do you build and maintain it?
Company culture is foundational to our success because consistency in client work starts with consistency inside the team.
We cannot position ourselves as operational partners if our internal environment is unstable. That is why we have committed to building a fully in-house, W-2 team with strong benefits, long-term growth paths, and real investment in professional development. People need to feel secure, supported, and aligned in order to produce precise, thoughtful work.
Protecting bandwidth is a major part of that. Our team needs to be excited about the work they are doing and have the time to approach it with care and precision. When people are overloaded, quality drops. When they have space, they think more strategically, solve problems more creatively, and create moments of real breakthrough.
We maintain culture through disciplined hiring and clear standards. Skill matters, but alignment matters more. We look for people who value accountability, humility, and long-term thinking. Culture for us is not a slogan. It is operational infrastructure, and it directly impacts the level of work we deliver.
Where do you envision your company in the next 5-10 years? What are your boldest long-term goals?
Over the next five to ten years, I see Temper And Forge growing into a larger, more deeply integrated operational partner for the organizations we serve.
That means a bigger team, expanded leadership structure, and stronger service-level frameworks that allow us to support complex, multi-division organizations with precision. We want to increase the depth of our relationships, not just the volume of our projects.
Our boldest long-term goal is to build a fully integrated digital growth ecosystem under one roof, where brand, web, search, paid media, and AI discovery strategy operate in alignment. As we grow, the priority will remain the same: disciplined expansion without compromising quality, culture, or partnership.
How has your leadership style evolved throughout your career, and what influences it?
My leadership style has evolved in two primary ways.
First, I have come to understand that I am a resource-oriented leader. I focus heavily on building the right relationships, systems, and infrastructure that support long-term growth and consistency for both our clients and our team. Rather than trying to control every outcome directly, I concentrate on ensuring the right resources are in place so strong outcomes become repeatable.
Second, I have learned the importance of sharing vision ownership. Earlier in my career, I carried most of the vision-setting myself. Over time, I have intentionally seeded parts of that responsibility to other leaders within our organization. That shift has created stronger cohesion across our leadership team and allowed us to scale without losing alignment.
Today, my leadership is less about directing every detail and more about setting standards, empowering capable leaders, and protecting the culture and precision that define our work.
What emerging technologies or market shifts are you most excited about for your company?
AI is the obvious answer, but what excites me most is not just how it changes our work. It is how it changes how businesses grow.
We are at a moment where it feels like the internet is being reinvented. Traditional search behavior is clearly shifting. Discovery is becoming conversational, intent-driven, and influenced by AI systems that interpret and synthesize information rather than simply rank it.
We have been actively supporting our clients through this transition, helping them structure their websites and content for AI-driven discovery and new forms of search visibility. This includes technical SEO, semantic structuring, performance optimization, and AI search readiness. It is an area we are deeply passionate about and one where we have developed real expertise.
More broadly, we are excited about how marketing, web infrastructure, and growth strategy are converging. The landscape is changing quickly, and that creates opportunity for teams that are disciplined, technically strong, and willing to evolve alongside it.
What advice would you give to aspiring CEOs? Can you share one lesson from your journey that resonates with the business community?
I do not know that I am uniquely qualified to give broad advice to other leaders, but I can share the principles that have guided me.
Focus on quality, sustainability, and repeatable growth. It is easy to chase revenue or momentum, especially in the early stages. What matters more is building systems that can support growth without breaking your team or compromising your standards.
The second lesson is to treat client care as a long-term partnership, not a transaction. When you prioritize precision and consistency over speed and volume, trust compounds. And when trust compounds, so does your business.
Growth built on discipline and partnership lasts longer than growth built on urgency.