Brandon Silverstein, owner of Impulse Development
Brandon Silverstein could have left El Paso with his computer science degree from UTEP in 2004, but he predicted his hometown was on the verge of offering greater career opportunities to someone with digital skills and a strong local network.
“I chose to stay in El Paso because it was the perfect place to start my own business,” said Silverstein, 30, the owner of website building company Impulse Development. “I had numerous friends, family, and business colleagues that formed a network that was crucial to finding business and getting started six years ago. I have no regrets staying here.”
Right out of college Silverstein had the classic comp sci job offer – the coding gig with a major data company that would put him in a cubicle on the programming assembly line. But, even though it was a practical career option, it didn’t seem like a good fit to the creative Franklin High grad who taught himself to build websites back in middle school and was fascinated by design.
“It was going to be very, very boring,” said Silverstein.
Instead, he took an opportunity to work at Stanton Street, a pioneer company in the El Paso web design and website development community. And less than two years later, Silverstein decided to launch his own web development company in El Paso, Impulse Development. He was joined there by web developer Andrew Hite.
“I was 24 at the time and didn’t have a mortgage. Wasn’t married. No kids. So it was the perfect time to try it,” said Silverstein, who thinks he would likely have ended up on more of a project management / supervisory path had he stayed at Stanton Street.
Now, six years after launching Impulse and building his own team, Silverstein continues to be hands on with a lot of the web designing and programming he likes.
“It’s still fun for me to do that,” he said.
Silverstein’s passion for keeping a hand in his work drives him to stay up to date on design trends and usability standards. He often teams with Armando Alvarez from boutique design firm Viva Creative Group, with whom Impulse shares office space and support staff. Silverstein cultivates his craft through collaboration, observation and conferences. His most recent trip to An Event Apart, the sold-out Austin coding conference of web industry stars, offered inspiration for new tools and techniques as well as reinforced Impulse Development’s guiding principle to create good user experiences.
“We try to keep all our designs modern and creative. And we never want to go too overboard with the design because we don’t want to detract from the usability of the website.”
Usability
When working with clients, Silverstein says educating them about web usability is important for a successful outcome.
“Sometimes clients want to design a website the way they want it to look, but they’re not the end user,” Silverstein said, explaining his company likes to work with clients to help them understand how to make their design ideas functional for those who visit their websites.
“We want to make our websites easy to navigate, easy to find the information for the end user.”
For example, Silverstein said, a few years back some clients wanted to use Flash animation for parts of their site. Impulse developers explained how Flash has compatibility problems with some browsers and can’t be used on popular devices like the iPhone and iPad. They convinced the clients to go with building features using JavaScript for wider accessibility for their digital audience.
Process
As a range of El Paso businesses and organizations venture onto the Internet, Impulse Development makes sure to walk clients through the process of website creation up front.
“We’ve had a mix of clients where they know exactly how the development process works and we’ve had clients that have never had a website before so we’ve have to tell them ‘we start with the design, then move on to the programming and then you add content.’ “
The process begins with an investigation phase where Impulse works with the client to develop a site map and outline the functionality of the website.
“That’s what we agree on first so we have a good idea of what the website needs to be, whether it’s a static brochure site, an e-commerce site or custom web applications,” Silverstein said. “Then we move on to the design, the look and feel of the website.”
Products
Search for anything in the El Paso-area Internet and you will quickly find a number of vibrant sites that were built by Impulse Development. Impulse has built sites for restaurants, retail shops and other businesses, associations, non-profits, entertainment and education groups, New Mexico’s Silicon Mesa and more. Their long list of clients include: Ripe Eatery, El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau, El Paso Bar Association, UTEP Office of Special Events, Hope and Anchor and the El Paso Art Museum Foundation. They even created the iPhone app for the Plaza Classic Film Festival.
In February 2011, Impulse Development picked up six El Paso Advertising Federation ADDY Awards, including the Best of Show award for the Hope and Anchor bar’s Jukebox Facebook app.
Now Silverstein is excited about the marriage of form and function in the recent launch of an e-commerce website they customized on Shopify for client http://jluxeboutique.com. Reflecting the web trend for “responsive design,” the website detects which device a user is viewing it on and resizes itself to the best format for desktop browsers, smart phones or tablets.
“Building a website for a desktop isn’t enough anymore,” he said.
Responsive design is different from the earlier trend of building one site for desktop viewing and another version of the site for a mobile device. Now only one website is built and that site adapts to whatever device it is being viewed by.
“There are so many devices coming out now with different layouts and widths and heights that it’s really hard to do one website that works for everything, so the way you code it you need to make sure that no matter what device is around now, devices that come out in one year, two years can still see the website.”
Impulse Development also created its own intuitive content management system that Silverstein says doesn’t have as much of a learning curve for clients as platforms like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. Clients can update or change much of the content on their sites whenever they want to by logging on and making the changes themselves.
“We hardly have any questions about how to use it,” he said.
Opportunity
As his business has grown, so has Silverstein’s confidence in El Paso‘s potential for digital entrepreneurs.
“There’s a ton of opportunity. Not only for people to find a job, but in some cases it’s easier just to start something on your own,” he said.
Still, Silverstein, who claims to be “surprisingly good” at ping pong, bowling and darts, has a backup plan.
“If web design doesn’t work out, I can probably hustle people in bowling alleys and make some money,” he replied in a follow-up email, and then tagged on a smiley face. 🙂
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Great article! Congrats Brandon!
Outstanding!!
Wow!! Felicidades Brandon!! 🙂