Digital Butlers interview for Website Planet

Our co-founder Alex Kirilenko gave an interview to the Website Planet 📰 You can read it below👇🏻

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From Bankruptcy to Thriving: A Guide to Resilience by Digital Butlers Co-founder Alex Kirilenko
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@Roberto Popolizio

In this interview series by Website Planet, I talk to executives from the best digital companies, who share their stories, tips and perspectives on what it really takes to create a successful website and online business. A deep dive into decades of hands-on experience and technical expertise to learn untold truths and practical advice that will immediately help you build and grow your website.

My guest today is Alex Kirilenko, Co-founder of Digital Butlers, a web development and design studio which has completed over 400 projects for a diverse range of clients since its inception. Digital Butlers is also a certified Webflow partner, offering unique high-end UX/UI design, fully adaptive code, and 3D animations.

Alex has 11+ years of experience in sales, design, and web development, all of which have played a significant role in the company’s operations and strategic direction.
Read on to learn about:

• The three keys for a successful website (and which is the top one)
• What almost killed his business, what saved him, and how he will prevent this from happening again
• How website owners often ruin their websites

Let’s pick his brain.

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To start, tell us briefly about you. What is your current role at your company, and what are the measurable achievements you are most proud of?
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We are building custom websites and web apps from scratch, as well as our own web products, like Webflow Templates, WMails.io (an autoresponder for Webflow sites’ forms), and more. When we started Digital Butlers, I was a web designer and Webflow developer. Now, I work as a Business Development Manager.

I am proud of our professional team. It took 8 years to find and build a group of experts skilled enough to create top-tier websites, from UX/UI design to development. But I’m I am also proud of our efficient “websites” manufacturing line.

As certified KANBAN users, we built a task delivery system that allows us to offer a $5,000 guarantee if we delay project delivery while maintaining consistently high quality.

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What pain point(s) do you solve for your customers? What was the “aha Moment” that led to the idea? Can you share that story with us?
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For the first 4–5 years, we focused on doing our job well, without considering needs or pain points. Businesses approached us for web design or development because they liked our work. However, we eventually decided to understand our target audience better. Analyzing our data, we found that 80 percent of companies needed a website to attract leads. Some of them were concerned about their brand image online. We decided to address both needs simultaneously.

We also realized that employers didn’t want to spend much time creating a website. Some had ideas about the site’s structure or possessed media materials, but when asked if they wanted a fully finished website with minimal effort on their part, everyone said “YES.”

Thus, we created a comprehensive service package covering all aspects of website development, leading to “The Butlers’ Method.”

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The Butlers’ Method is a website development program honed from the experience of building 400+ projects. They take ONLY 4 hours of your time during the whole website creation process, when a team made of a manager, designer, front-end, and back-end developers, a tester, and an art director collaborate on the project from start to finish and spend hundreds of hours to your TOP-tier project.

You sit and wait, and if Digital Butlers doesn’t deliver within the below deadlines, you get $5,000 refund:
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• • 37 workdays for Landing Page
• • 56 workdays for a 5-page website
• • 72 workdays for a 10-page website
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What do you think makes your company stand out? What are you most proud of?
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I believe most interviewees will mention things like ‘the level of quality’ or ‘our awards,’ but for us, it’s different.

When my business partner Paul and I discussed potential names, we found inspiration in Alfred from Batman DC Comics. He is a wise, reliable, and honest expert who handles the background while Batman focuses on saving the world. We wanted to emulate this.

While our employers focus on the main – their business – we take care of everything web-related. This is how the Digital Butlers’ philosophy was born. We also created ‘The Butlers’ Code,’ outlining our values and conduct, followed by every team member.
I believe our unique positioning, combined with our team’s expertise, truly sets us apart.
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From your experience, what are the most important things to build a highly successful website and online business? Please explain each in detail.
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Pretty deep topic… I prefer to separate the meanings of a “successful website” and a “successful online business.”

A website is a tool to achieve a specific goal, often generating leads. However, some sites have other objectives:

1. Promote the brand and grow its popularity
2. Support various business processes
3. Share information and news
4. Others

A successful website achieves its goal, which is very individual.

For businesses, the goal is straightforward: generate income. For online businesses, the same applies. If an online business makes a profit, it’s successful. The more profit it generates, the more successful it is. Simple 😅

Now that we’ve defined “success,” we can discuss the key factors for achieving it.
For a “successful website,” three key factors stand out:

1. Logic and Content: The website’s structure and content must address the user’s needs clearly. Actions should be intuitive and require minimal clicks.
2. Visual Design: With numerous websites, standing out is crucial. Many sites look similar due to reused stylistic elements or templates. Create a unique visual story that captures the user’s attention immediately and stands out among other open tabs.
3. Build and Performance: The site must be compatible with all modern browsers and devices and load quickly, even with animations and media.

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If these three factors are optimized, the site will be successful. Additionally, if the site is built on a flexible and streamlined content management system (CMS), it will be easy to manage, scale, and improve in the future. Now, let’s talk about a successful online business. This is a broad topic because online businesses vary widely, from online stores and web apps to mobile applications and online services. However, two key features are common to all successful online businesses:

1. The Product: The user should easily fulfill their needs through your business. They should be able to purchase products, access services, or use online functions effortlessly. Building such a product involves steps like research, design, development, testing, launch, and improvement. If users can easily get what they need, this is the first step toward success.
2. Marketing: No matter how good your service or store is, if no one knows about it, it won’t succeed. Reliable and clear promotion channels are crucial to attracting new users and generating profit.

These are the basics. Any business is complex and requires attention to the team, work environment, finances, sales, bookkeeping, legality, and more. But focusing on the product and marketing is essential. The rest can be addressed as needed.

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If there were one part of the website development process you would have spent 50% more time on, what would it be and why? What made you realize the importance of this step?
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User Experience (UX) design.

If you can accurately understand the user’s needs and build the site logic to help them achieve their goals, the visual (UI) design and site build can be less critical.

🔑 While it’s important to maintain high standards for all three factors, if you must prioritize one, focus 50% more on UX design.

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What’s the one key lesson you’ve learned about building a website and business that you wish you knew when you started? What’s the story behind this realization?

Diversify your business NOW.

To protect against unexpected future shocks, start building your protection today. Here’s our experience:

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Since 2016, we received numerous requests and completed over 400 projects in 5 years. About 85% of these came from recommendations and the Webflow popular designers page. Despite not having a full website (just a one-screen landing with our name and contacts) we grew to 32 team members using only these two lead sources.

But some things happened. First, Webflow removed the popular designers’ page, diminishing our high position’s value. Second, at peak workload, 12 team members focused on two large projects. When these and other employers faced financial issues due to the economic crisis in 2022, work volume decreased, leaving ten people without a job.

These changes occurred in a short period and despite our efforts, we were close to bankruptcy.

Had we diversified our marketing efforts and invested in more lead channels, the impact would have been less severe. Now we have:

1. A professional website and landing pages
2. High positions on various provider ranking platforms
3. Accounts on designer networks like Dribbble and Behance
4. Active Instagram and LinkedIn
5. 40+ awards on well-known platforms

It was a crucial lesson: to keep receiving leads, you need to diversify your sources, even when you’re fully booked.

Another point on diversification: build your own products. As a web studio, our business alone won’t let us achieve complete financial freedom. We need products that generate revenue automatically, allowing us to focus on what we love.
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Now we have two launched products: Webflow templates and WMails.io (an autoresponder for Webflow sites’ forms). We’re working on two more, set to launch by 2025. We’re investing 20% of our income in this effort and plan to increase it for greater independence. I recommend doing the same.

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In your opinion, which aspect of running a website tends to be most underestimated?
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Can you explain or give an example?

Sometimes, after we deliver a finished website, the employer’s marketing team takes over and adds content—visuals, text, and sometimes even changes the page structure. Unfortunately, these changes often disrupt the site’s style and technical structure, affecting its appearance and performance/SEO. For example, inserting too much text into a title or uploading a large, non-optimized image can cause issues.
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We design websites as a consistent organism: considering layout, content management, and future updates. We also provide video instructions for each site to guide our employers on using the CMS. However, our recommendations aren’t always followed.

💡 If you can’t keep the site managed by the original team, pay close attention to the provided instructions. This will positively impact your site’s image and search rankings.

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Based on your experiences, what trends and technologies are currently underestimated or overlooked, but can significantly impact your industry? How are you going to adapt?
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As in many other fields, artificial intelligence is inevitably making its way into the website production industry too. Of course, a lot of attention is now focused on this and it is now extremely difficult to overlook or underestimate the influence of AI.

However, I think it’s important to note that many designers and developers worry about this. They are afraid that artificial intelligence will completely replace them.

Since AI is here to stay, it’s essential to learn how to use it effectively. For example, we actively use AI to assist in preparing both textual and visual content for websites. We don’t rely solely on tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney for final content but use them to speed up material development. Our team then manually refines the AI-generated output to meet our standards.

Maybe, in the future, AI might create high-quality designs or code websites autonomously. However, without professional input, AI alone may not fully address user needs in website production. Embrace AI to enhance your work rather than fearing it.