Who you’re dealing with
Neal Hollis
Nearly three decades keeping systems running under real pressure, now spent building tools so experts don’t have to fight the technology around what they know.
The story
Founder photo
to come
I started Data Forge Media because I kept watching capable people get stuck. Not because they weren't smart enough, and not because they weren't willing to work. Because they were buried in conflicting advice and forty tools that all promised the same thing.
I've been in IT since 1997. Three of those years were overseas tours as a contractor for the Department of Defense, supporting an Army intelligence program. Two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. The systems had to work, and when they didn't there was nobody else to call. That's where I learned that the fanciest option and the right option are usually different things.
Since then I've shipped more than ten client sites, four of them membership sites, and built three applications that are running right now. Creataby is one of them. I built it because I kept doing the same first hour of work with every client, and it turned out that hour could be a tool.
My job isn't to impress you with how deep the tech goes. It's to slow it down, explain it in words you'd actually use, and build the thing properly. Or hand you a tool that does it for you, if that's what you'd rather.
How I work
Three things that don’t change
Structure before speed
Fast growth on a shaky foundation collapses, and rebuilding costs more than building it right did. So we get the structure settled first, even when that's the slower-sounding answer.
Only what we use ourselves
We don't recommend a tool we haven't run in a real build. That rules out a lot of things that pay well to promote.
Make it make sense, then automate it
Automating a process nobody understands just makes the confusion faster. We get it working in plain steps first, and add the automation after.
Where to next
Two ways in
Use the tools yourself, or hand the build over. Plenty of people start with the first and come back for the second.