Spicy Web Designers

Robert Podgorski is the creative director at Black Moon Development in Poznan, Poland. Black Moon Development was founded back in 2005 the idea behind their brand comes from being raised on sci-fi games, movies and books and the idea of a group of astronauts on a mission. The company currently has 6 employees, 1 intern and a few freelancers that handle some work on various projects.

1. I found it interesting that you guys are located in Poland. Why did you decide to launch and brand your company the way that you have?

Well - it was natural for us that we need to be honest with our clients - and that we shouldn’t pretend to be somebody else.

Since we’re rather small company (and we were even smaller back the time we were starting BlackMoon) - w decided to have a website that reflects that.

And since we’re all raised on sci-fi games, movies and books (and we still love those) - the idea of a team of astronauts on the mission to the moon came up pretty naturally.

2. How big is Black Moon Development currently in terms of employees?

We currently have 6 employees, one intern and few freelancers that co-operate with us.

3. How long has Black Moon Development been in business and how did it all start?

BlackMoon was found in 2005 - and at first there were just two people in a tiny, one-room office. We had some work experience in big web design agencies - and decided to start our own business. The main goal was to have fun at work - and we were hoping the money will follow eventually. It pretty much worked out

4. What is the biggest challenge that your company faces today? How are you working to remedy this problem?

We have some problems (who doesn’t?)

First of all - we have millions ideas for our own, private projects - but unfortunately there’s never enough time to work on those, which is a bit confusing.

Second thing is that there are several people who smoke at the office - and when your friends smoke - it makes quitting quite impossible.

So I guess we need all to quit at the same time - and use time from cigarette breaks to move our own project further.

5. What are a few things you want people to know about your business?

I would like the people to know that we can help them doing their business.

I would like them to know that they can trust us - and that they should tell us their needs - and we’ll come up with a idea how to make it happen.

(You might be surprised how many people come to us and start the talk like “I want site in blue color, similar layout to mycompetition.com and with nice flash intro” - and when you ask them “why?” - it shows up that they have a clear goal of what they want).

And of course I would like everybody to know that they should go to http://blackmoondev.com if they need great quality website

6. Does your company offer Search Engine Optimization and what can customers expect? Do you point them to the professionals or do you have someone in-house who does this for your customers?

We don’t offer SEO. What we do is to try to convince the clients that they should take care of an excellent material on their site - and traffic and high page rank will come by itself. Of course we develop the sites in a way that they’re easily reachable by robots and so on.

7. How do you usually price web design projects for your customers?

We have two “out-of-the-box” solutions - which are blog-type site and e-shop. We have a fix price for that and a long list of features each site has got (custom, beautiful design included). Majority of our customers finds one of those suitable for them. For projects that have some new, complex functionality - we price those individually.