THE great thing about modern communications is that a talented person can work with clients from all over the shop.
Take Ryan Foster, for example. The former Indigo Multimedia project manager operates from a room in the Newcastle area, armed with lifesavers such as project management software Basecamp and voice and video call tool Skype. But he’s been able to build up a few clients in the tech cluster of San Francisco, thanks to word of mouth among the start-ups in the city.
“I started doing some work with the Shopify ecommerce programme, and the guy from Shopify connected me to someone at DODOcase, who were looking to re-brand their website.
“Although people think it’s a big city, once you get in there you find that people will start recommending you a bit. I focused on a particular niche and specialised in that.”
Foster picked up interest for a number of reasons, one of which was that his work with Shopify made him familiar with the web framework Ruby On Rails, which he says is used by “a lot of tech start-ups in San Francisco”.
He’s worked with Bay Area firms including handcrafted iPad case makers DODOcase, estate agent search app Homelight, social referral platform Curebit and jacket company Derby of San Francisco.
He is working with two of the top ten firms on the Shopify platform, namely DODOcase and hair extensions firm Luxy Hair.
Since leaving his role at Newcastle digital agency Indigo a few years ago he has built up clients worldwide, mostly focusing on ecommerce projects. Ryan Foster Design operates as a limited company, and he draws on the talents of a few other freelancers to work on projects when their skills are required.
“Most of the work is in ecommerce using Shopify, or Software as a Service. I try to seek out people who have businesses based around digital rather than it being just an add-on.
“The work isn’t just about visual design. It’s about understanding business and analytics. You might end up testing mock-ups with the users before you start implementing changes, and working with marketing people on sales funnels. It’s very collaborative.”
Foster is a firm believer in the value of a good freelancer to a business, and set up Freelance Romance with Stick Theory founder Di Gates last year to bring freelancers together and soften attitudes towards them in the region’s business community. The next event is on February 29 at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle.
He said: “I’ve got clients in San Francisco, Denmark and South Africa, but in the North East if I explain the way my company is set up, people start to worry a little bit.
“It doesn’t really matter where you are these days, as long as you’ve got good people and a good system. It does make you a lot more efficient. You’ve got to be really focused and work very effectively remotely with Skype, Basecamp and Google Docs.
“I find it’s important to arrange regular check-ins. You don’t want to be on IM or Skype all the time, but it’s good to set times that you’re going to check-in and talk, even if nothing’s happened. It’s important to keep people up to date.”
