Quick Intro

This is the story of Tall Town Design. Such as how and why it started, along with the who, what and where.

The Extremely Short Version

We started a business.

The Semi-Short Timeline Version in Bullet Points

The Long Version That Not Many People Will Read. But it Does Have Images

After graduating from Washington State University with an Astrophysics degree, I decided I needed to move to the Seattle area. There weren’t many astrophysics jobs in Waitsburg, WA, where I grew up. I’m being funny when I use the word, “many”, because it's a small farm town with a population of 1,100 people.

I applied for several physics jobs, but unfortunately my GPA was 0.01 short of being able to round up to a 3.0. Which was really frustrating because I worked my ass off in school and basically lived in the library.

After a while I gave up applying for astrophysics jobs and found a job that I was familiar with, which was a part-time job at Fastenal in Kent, WA, where I sold construction supplies. It was a good job for the most part, and I worked hard at it.

Another day at Fastenal.

A full time position at Fastenal opened up and my bosses encouraged me to apply for it and I was 99% sure I was going to get it. Some new hire, however, managed to swoop down and take it from me. It drove me insane, because this new guy was lazy and incompetent among many other things and I found myself doing his job often.

That’s when I decided I needed to use my astrophysics degree for something. I toyed with the idea of starting a business. The idea of being a business owner never sounded interesting to me, but maybe I would be able to use my degree.

In college I did some tutoring, so I got the idea of starting a tutoring business. I ran with the concept and started an LLC, called AMP Tutoring in 2014. It stood for Astronomy, Math and Physics.

AMP Tutoring logo mockup.

Then came the hard part, the marketing of the new business and getting clients. Naturally, I needed a website. I remember seeing an ad for WordPress, it said something along the lines of having a website up and running in minutes. Well the minutes easily turned into hours that turned into days of trying to get this website live.

I did enjoy building that website though, and I realized that other businesses are probably having a hard time building websites too. Then I started to wonder, should I start a web design business instead?

So on March 19th, 2015 I called my close friend, Colton Townsend. Colton and I have been close friends since 1st grade and he happened to move to the Seattle area as well to work as a data analyst at a marketing company for car dealerships. I asked him if he wanted to start a web design business and that was the start of Tall Town Design, even though we didn’t know what we were going to name it yet.

Come 2016, we needed to find more clients. I had a theory that I needed to do some networking. I went online and found this group called the Seattle Search Network, that holds two monthly digital marketing events per month. A public event with pretty big name speakers, and a mastermind where we talk skills and best practices.

When I went to my first Seattle Search Network (SSN) meeting I got into the elevator to go to the meeting, I had no idea what to expect and was slightly nervous. In the elevator I met the president by chance, David Lindahl. He started talking to me about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and I had no idea what SEO was about, but it sounded very like something I would enjoy doing professionally.

I found myself going to every SSN event, not only was I learning a lot, but I was networking. Soon I found myself on the board, where I was booking some pretty big name speakers in the industry to give presentations at our events. Names such as Ian Lurie and Rand Fishkin.

I also joined the Rotary Club of Des Moines and Normandy Park. Like with SSN, I applied a lot of effort into the group and was soon on the board. In the group I met one of my mentors and friend, Blake Messer.

Around this same time I abruptly quit my job at Fastenal. The management and atmosphere went downhill fast. Still needing money I got a catering job. I would work weddings and events on the weekends/evenings and do web design and/or SEO during the day.

Those were hard days, I had very little time off. I remember my Thursdays being 18 hour work days. I would wake up at 5am to do client stuff, then take the light rail into Benaroya Hall, a large 2500-seat performance venue in downtown Seattle to serve food. I would get home at about 11pm.

Money was tight at the time.

I started doing some math on how much money the business made vs. how many hours we put into the business. This was about after two or three years. The number came out to about $0.05 cents per hour. Oddly, I didn’t feel deterred or nervous about this. We just kept pushing on.

In another case during December 2018, I was asked to pick up some vodka for a Christmas party. I looked in my bank account and my credit card was maxed out and I only had 17 dollars in my bank account. So I bought this low end vodka as that’s all I could afford and I remember my friend being like, WTF, why would you buy this cheap vodka? I didn’t give an answer.

Things took a better turn that month though, I landed two large SEO clients. Probably stupidly, I quit my catering job the next month, or January 2019. Not long after, the catering business Colton and I both worked for, also became a client.

At this point I was the President of the Seattle Search Network. Not long after becoming president our club was invited to Moz for a private testing of one of Moz’s new tools. I was really nervous to go, and almost didn’t. Moz was a huge name in SEO and I was scared that I might have to interact with someone who knew more than I did. For example, there was an unlikely chance that Rand Fishkin would be there, the “Wizard of Moz” and probably the biggest name in SEO at that time.

When we got to Moz I was quickly intimidated to meet Brittany Muller and Dr. Pete (Dr. Peter Meyers) who were both pretty big names in the industry. At least Rand Fishkin wasn’t there. I remember sitting down and getting my laptop setup, then going to the bathroom before the meeting was about to start. When I came back into the meeting room to my great fear, Rand Fishkin took a seat right next to me for the 3 hour long meeting. Well I held myself pretty well, and at least didn’t embarrass myself.

Come early 2019 I became the president of the Des Moines and Normandy Park Rotary Club. A service club where we helped raise money for the community.

Both of these groups helped me not only grow business, but I found multiple mentors and long time friends. There was Blake Messer, Carl Larson, David Lindhal, Robbin Block, Alex Kine, John Schuster, Hayk Saakian, Richard Geasey, Shane Griffiths and Stephanie Smith. Tall Town Design would not exist without these mentors and friends. Maybe they will have a tool where they will get alerts when someone mentions their name online so they can find/read this. Well if you are reading it, thank you!

At the end of 2019, Colton decided to step away from the business. We parted on good terms, and are still close friends. I’m not sure why he left, and didn’t want to intrude by asking. His new career seems to fit him well, and for that I am glad that he found something he enjoys.

March 2020 was probably one of the craziest weeks of my life. The first covid death in the US just happened, and this was while I was the president of both the Seattle Search Network and Rotary. Both of these clubs hold public events, and there were no restrictions and covid was still new and unknown. One of my close and trusted friends/mentors sent me an email Monday morning about how serious covid could turn out to be. The Rotary club the following weekend was holding an 800 person Wine Festival. Not only that, my Mom was in Africa volunteering at a remote hospital. I couldn’t get a hold of her for a few days at the start of that week and my Aunt heard that there were cases of covid there. That week was a very stressful 100 hour week trying to keep both clubs safe, along with my Mom. My Mom made the last plane out of Africa and we decided to cancel the Wine Fest 4 days before it happened.

At the start of 2021 I hit a ceiling on the amount of work I could do, so I decided to start working with a contractor. One of my first, was Sam Stebbins. Who has been an important part of the Tall Town Design team ever since. His SEO skills have been a life saver.

At the end of 2021 I got a cold call from Wix about being a Wix Partner. It was a pretty big monthly expense, so I thought I was going to turn it down. Coincidentally, an old college friend called, Winston Smith. We were chatting and during the call it just kinda hit me, and I asked Winston if he wanted to join the team and manage the Wix side of things. He loved the idea as he wanted to travel and work, and the line of work really seems to match his way of thinking. Winston is a quick learner and client friendly, so he quickly became a pivotal team member.

In early 2022 I started asking some more people if they wanted to do some contracting. One of those people was Ivanna Saldivar, a friend since highschool who took a coding boot camp. Her web design skills in Webflow and Wix have been an amazing addition to the team.

At that same time there was also Cody Wikman. He has been a friend since jr. high. Him and I didn’t keep in touch much after highschool, but he oddly started his full stack web dev career around the same time Tall Town Design started (unbeknown to both of us). In tough technical situations, Cody has been such a huge help. He seems to know it all when it comes to coding.

Then there’s Brittany Schneider, who joined the team in mid 2022. Colton introduced me to her. She started attending team meetings and I quickly found that she was eager to learn and was a great problem solver. She has become my go to when it comes to doing certain technical SEO tasks. She’s also been helpful with other SEO and web design projects.

To step back a bit, in February 2022 I made a hard decision to move away from the Seattle area (Des Moines to be exact). Why? Essentially I was tired of the chaos that the Seattle area was becoming. CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) was a good but extreme example of this. I went twice, what an experience.

I lived with my Mom for a year in Waitsburg while I was trying to find a place to buy. It was awkward telling old friends that I was living back with my Mom. They probably thought my business was doing badly or something. But wow, it was nice being back in a small community.

In February 2023 I bought a place in Dayton, WA that I really enjoy.

In June 2024 I became the President of the Waitsburg Lions Club, which is the 3rd largest Lions club in the Pacific Northwest.

Now it is Monday July 1st, 2024 at 5:53pm, and it is mind blowing to look back and think about how far Tall Town Design has come. There was luck, but hard work created opportunities for that luck to happen. We have consistently been getting more clients and learning new skills, and I’m extremely proud of this team, and I look forward to the years and projects ahead.

Ok, time to call it a day.

Take care,
Connor