2017 at a glance
While it’s always exciting to look forward at the newest and shiny goals, it’s equally as important to realize how far we’ve come.
20+
Project launches
+9
Crew members added
4
Addy awards
Behind the numbers
Extending our roots
While we always took a remote-first collaborative approach to work with clients from all over the world, we were all co-located at HQ. Our approach also allowed anyone to work from home, while traveling, or wherever life took them.
In 2017, we finally made the jump to hire outside of Northeast Wisconsin and brought on members from around the US. We’re still learning how to make the remote-crew experience better and more congruent with the local-crew experience, but strongly believe that people do their best work wherever they’re happiest.
Shout out to our remote crew, Tess in Albuquerque, NM, Gabi in Aurora, CO, Mark in Denver, CO, Tra in Madison, WI, Sam in Reno, NV.
Design apprenticeship
Providing new career opportunities and helping level people up is close to our heart, so in August of 2017 we began our first cohort of design apprentices. Overall we consider the first program a success and definitely something we’re going to continue as part of our plan to teach and bring talent up.
Addy Awards
While results and outcomes are our focus when we work with clients, it’s always great to feel a sense of accomplishment and be awarded by our peers.
We submitted 3 entries for this year’s ADDY Awards to our local chapter and ended up taking home 4 awards! Two awards were for the RISE application itself, one was for the RISE Case Study video, and one was for our Holiday Gift.
Continuous improvement & growth
We believe in practicing what we preach and continuously learning, improving, and keeping our compass set to what works. That means investing in new approaches, new processes, and new ways of thinking.
If you worked with us in early 2017 and you decide to work with us again now - you’d see a more mature, grown up Headway. By keeping our focus on what works, we always review what doesn’t, and while we aim to over communicate with our clients, sometimes we still have gaps in understanding. Our client and internal retrospectives really help us reflect on what needs the most improvement, what needs to be iterated on, and what can be removed from the process.
Community & impact
Being involved in our local community is extremely important to us. Working in the industry for so long, and with so many different startups, we’ve been exposed to approaches and processes that are far and few between where we call home.
I’m personally a co-founder of Digital Fertilizer, a non-profit organization that connects, engages, and empowers the high-tech community. I’m also the current standing President and looking to expand our reach.
In 2017, we started the Bay Area Creative Club with a mission of bringing together the creative ecosystem and key players together for quarterly competitions. We compete for a big traveling trophy that earns you bragging rights and a chance to continually defend it to bring it back to your home base. Not only do we bring the community together, for each quarterly event, we donate all of the proceeds directly to a local non-profit in the community that will then put it to good use.
If you’re in the area, a designer, developer, marketer, founder, entrepreneur, photography, artist, or otherwise - you need to join us! Sign up and make sure you register for our upcoming tournament.
Let’s make headway!
We can tackle any type of project, but we don’t work with everyone. We only partner with clients that align with our business values, can truly benefit from our expertise, embrace the systems we build in, and set our collective compasses to what works.
If you’re looking to gain confidence in your idea, build out your MVP to bring it to market, or grow your current business through customer-centered design and development, we’d love to work with you in 2018!
