IntuitionHQ
Jacob Creech and Nathan Donaldson of CreativeHQ
Born out of an internal need at a small Wellington web and design company, IntuitionHQ has now become an industry leader in the world of website usability.
“Back in 2009 at Boost New Media, the team was getting pretty frustrated with the limited usability tools out there,” says Jacob Creech, head of Usability, UX and marketing at IntuitionHQ. “They knew that they had a talented group of programmers who were capable of building a far superior product so they decided to give it a go.”
Originally used for internal purposes, it wasn’t until a client saw the product and gave rave reviews that Boost New Media decided to commercialise, and IntuitionHQ was born.
“The support we have had from Grow Wellington has given us the connections and push we have needed to turn our ideas into reality,” says Jacob.
IntuitionHQ has grown and developed to the point that what was once a humble internal product is now seen, not only as a leading force in the local and global markets, but also regarded internationally as a thought leader in best practice website design and usability.
“We’ve had signups from companies and organisations all around the world, ranging from large universities, libraries and multinationals to freelancers and small businesses.”
“30 percent of the traffic to our website is coming from the US,” says Jacob, “which is huge, especially considering we don’t have a physical presence there.”
That could all be about to change however, as IntuitionHQ have been named as the winners of Booster Seat 2011, an award started by Litmos.com founders Rich Chetwynd and Nicole Fougere.
After achieving great success with Litmos.com, Rich and Nicole wanted to give back to the New Zealand community in the way of a NZ$10,000 prize for two people to spend a month in San Francisco’s vibrant tech and start up scene.
“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us,” says Jacob. “The US is our biggest market, and at times it’s hard not being where the action is. Our time in San Francisco is going to be invaluable in terms of further development of our product, developing connections and hopefully going down the track of angle investment and long terms service contracts in spaces like the US universities.”
Wherever they end up however, Jacob and the team are incredibly appreciative of their beginnings in Wellington.
“The collaborative environment in Wellington makes it easy to build and maintain relationships,” says Jacob. “There is a fantastic innovative community here.”