ABOUT

I started designing websites by accident.

I was a smart kid who worked for a frugal employer. My employer did everything in-house. He did not like hiring contractors; he didn’t trust them because he had been burned too many times. In fact, I got my shot because his teenage website designer ditched him when he left for college. He said, “Want to take over the website?” That was my first gig.

My approach is “business first.”

I did not graduate from a design or art school. Everything I’ve learned about website design and philosophy, I’ve learned from running my own businesses, or helping others run theirs.

I want you to shine.

My calling in life is to build and hold spaces to help people shine. With every website project, that’s my goal.

I want your website to look as good as you are talented.

Your website’s job is to win you new customers. Everything starts with this essential mission.

For most websites, the essential, core task is education. The website educates the customer about your product, your professionalism and your story.

Your business website should be a business asset. It should help your business run faster, stronger, more smoothly. Most importantly, it should help you establish and carry out core systems that are automated, consistent, and efficient.

The About page is a website’s second most important page (after the homepage). Like most people, you’re curious about who runs this business, how they do it, and why. Because you suspect there is a beating human heard behind this operation, and you’re human too, and humanity feels good.

About Me

I am an entrepreneur interested in helping people develop clarity about who they are, so they can share a clearer picture of that identity to the world. I do this via three businesses: Isthmus Design, Nick Wilkes Photography, and Devils Lake Climbing Guides.

I am an entrepreneur. I run three businesses; this is one of them. I like thinking about business, systems, design, marketing, positioning. I love creating websites because for most businesses, they can serve as an amazing, empowering tool and system that punches well above its weight.

I love adventure, by which I mean, exploring unknown and exciting territory while managing risk along the way.

In high school, I wanted to be a therapist. After surviving a car wreck my senior year, I wanted to be a doctor. After a few years of college, it became clear I like teaching. After some years teaching, I became involved in a business and found it had curiousity about how businesses work, and how websites are educational tools that can be leveraged to take load off staff members.

I am a husband to an insightful and grounding woman, and a father to two energetic and intelligent boys. My family is my top priority, after my own wellbeing.