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SupportEmpower clients with technology to get work done and go home happy each and every day.
Our Mission
Founded in 2006, we design, build, maintain, and host: websites, web applications, and custom software. We operate nimbly as a boutique software development firm with significant expertise in design and usability. Along with supporting our clients and their businesses, we are entrepreneurs at heart and use our expertise to build our own products such as Agent SITE, RegWiz, and SecureMyWebsite.
Our form and function approach to websites is the reason we trademarked the phrase Beautiful Websites that Work! ®
From the beginning
2006
Founded 2006 in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sharp Hue was founded by Shan Pesaru on May 11, 2006 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Shan remains the 100% owner of Sharp Hue today. In the beginning, Sharp Hue’s services focused around web hosting and custom web applications.
Sharp Hue V1
Shan designed and programmed the original sharphue.com website that showcased a project for one of Sharp Hue’s first clients. Today, Sharp Hue has served over 400 clients with needs such as hosting, design, and development.
BookAnt Launched
Sharp Hue’s first startup product was BookAnt, a peer to peer textbook exchange for college students. While it gained traction in the first year at over 30 colleges, BookAnt ultimately failed after a decision to shift to the very infant Facebook Apps platform resulted in endless bugs for one person to handle.
2007
Sharp Hue First Office Location
After working out of a home office and coffee shops for the first few years, it was finally time to get an office where clients could meet to discuss projects.
2008
Sharp Hue V2
The second Sharp Hue website took advantage of the latest improvements in browser layer transparency effects. The first several dozen client websites we built were all painstakingly hand coded and tested in browsers to make sure our cutting edge approach was still compatible with many browsers.
Private Cloud Hosting
Sharp Hue’s origins were a web hosting company venture started by Shan in his Georgia Tech dorm room during his senior year. Once Sharp Hue’s client roster was large enough, an investment was made to provide high uptime, private hosting of websites and email for clients.
Visual Cart Launched
Visual Cart was one of the first true products of Sharp Hue that was built around identifying needs of clients and developing a product to meet those needs. The Visual Cart logo was a shopping cart made from one of the leafs of the Sharp Hue logo.
2009
Sharp Hue Office Expansion
As more team members were added, in a rough economy, we got creative with our landlord and found additional space within the same building and eventually combined three suites to house the Sharp Hue team.
Chile Pepper Partnership
Sharp Hue has worked with many non-profit organizations over the years and often times donating services to help these organizations succeed. Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival is one close to our heart and we are proud to support an organization that gives back all of its profits to our community.
2010
First Full-Time Employee Hired
It took four years before it was possible to hire a full-time employee to help grow the business. Sean Borsodi joined the team as a designer who also had programming knowledge. Since we pronounced our names the same, Sean became known as Sean 2, among clients and friends.
Teaching & Training
In the early years of Sharp Hue, Shan spent a lot of time making presentations and networking through teaching and training opportunities that included: Develop User Groups, Chambers of Commerce, Small Business Development Center, WordPress WordCamp, Small Business Conferences, and K-12 Teacher Education.
WordPress Adoption
WordPress changed everything for Sharp Hue. Instead of relying on custom made content management systems, we found a budding ecosystem for building and maintaining websites. In 2018, 30% of the web uses WordPress. Wow!
500 Projects Completed
Projects are how we stay organized and whether it is a small set of website updates or a brand new website, each project allows us to stay connected with our clients and their growing needs.
Register Wizard Launched
Register Wizard was an opportunity that came to us through our partnership with an event director who heard the pain points of another race director with regards to collecting payments and registration data in a simple, fast, and user-friendly way.
2011
Sharp Hue V3
The third Sharp Hue website was the first time we started using the phrase “Beautiful Websites that Work” to describe our simple truth of form and function. Usage of the phrase on the website was critical to our ability to show usage of the phrase and register the phrase as a trademark with USPTO.
2012
1000 Projects Completed
Even as the number of projects completed continues to grow, we find that we spend quality time on each project whether the needs are big or small.
2013
LogoHue Launched
Designing logos and helping startups create stunning brands was always a fun part of new projects. In 2013 we formalized our process and standardized our process for logo design to make professional logo design affordable and a rewarding experience for clients.
1500 Projects Completed
One of the lesser known things about our company is that we don’t have dedicated project managers. Instead of adding middle-people, we spend considerable effort and time training our team members to be great time managers and communicators.
2014
New Sharp Hue Office Location
The next Sharp Hue office location was a clean slate that allowed us to customize our space to the needs of our team. While we only moved one mile down the road, we landed back in Fayetteville with a prime location near the NWA Mall.
Registered Trademark
When you first start out, some administrative tasks like registering your trademark is a bottom-of-the-list cost. At around 6 years in business is when we knew we’d be here for the long haul and registered our name, our logo, and the phrase “Beautiful Websites that Work!”
2015
Sharp Hue V4
The fourth Sharp Hue website, like those before it, represented the current trends in web design of the time. The clean, flat graphics were a stark contrast to years of gradients and shadows that got in their own way.
2000 Projects Completed
Every new project is met with excitement at Sharp Hue. As natural born problem solvers, we always look forward to hearing from our clients and how we can help them win back time and grow their businesses using technology.
2016
Sharp Hue V5
We realized over the years that it gets harder and harder to redesign our entire website. This time we optimized the site we had and began focusing on the new messaging and positioning that accurately reflects our capabilities as technology and business consultants.
Sharp Hue Support
In August of 2015 we reorganized the company so that the role of client services was embedded within our systems and processes. We introduced Sharp Hue Team Support which allowed all team members to collaborate on questions, tasks, and issues from clients. Eventually we implemented Zendesk which does an amazing job of helping us manage a lot of clients with a small team.
Atlanta Office Opened
Shan moved to Atlanta, GA to open a new office with focuses around product development and startups. The first Atlanta office was inside a startup hub called Switchyards where Shan was able to immerse himself in startup thinking and creative energy.
Azure & WP Engine
After 10 years of being in business and still managing the same private hosting cloud from 2008, it became evident that technology was less expensive than when we started and that partnering with the best hosting companies to manage websites on their infrastructure would win us back time and give us new ways to grow.
10 Years in Business
Since this 10 year celebration also included the year of opening the Atlanta office, an Atlanta skyline photo was commissioned for the Fayetteville office and the team chowed down together to celebrate, as we often do for team member birthdays and just because!
2500 Projects Completed
Technology enables us to do more and more with less resources. This inverse relationship enables us to spend adequate time on each project so that quality remains a high priority as well as affordability.
Agent SITE Launched
Agent SITE was the result of the new focus on products & startups after Shan moved to Atlanta. Agent SITE allows the Sharp Hue team a platform to work on real estate websites for clients using MLS data, without the custom programming each time.
2017
Tech Partner Program Launched
The culmination of working relationships with clients, a decade of expertise, streamlined technology, and a desire to offer more support for our clients resulted in the creation of the Technology Partner Program. This retainer-like program offers discounted rates and priority access in the queue for clients who have monthly ongoing needs.
New Atlanta Office Location
After a year in Switchyards, it was time to find a quieter office with room for another team member. The next Atlanta office location was inside a coworking space called Alkaloid Networks.
2018
Secure My Website Launched
By now, it’s not unusual at all for Sharp Hue to create a product based on patterned demand seen across our clients. The latest product focuses on helping our clients secure their website to help their customers feel safe and also to stay up with changes in search engine ranking factors such as HTTPS.
3000 Projects Completed
The future and our ability to handle more projects and grow alongside clients is exciting and a big factor of why our team loves this work. One way we will grow our projects and interactions with clients is by proactively communicating and educating our clients on ways they can improve and win back more time with technology.
Sharp Hue V6
Our 6th website is a testament to the new processes and technologies we implemented in the previous two years since opening the Atlanta office. The homepage speaks our company vision of helping clients get work done and go home happy. The website now reflects more accurately our capabilities and products.
Atlanta Office Returns to the City
In June, the Sharp Hue Atlanta office moved downtown to the Peachtree Center. The new office enables us to grow our team, especially internships, by locating in downtown near Georgia State University and Georgia Tech. Kevin Bourne (pictured in the photo) is our latest Full-Time hire as a Web Designer!
2019
Sharp Hue Fayetteville Team Heads Downtown
The Fayetteville team has moved to the square in Downtown Fayetteville and was recently a stop on the local Startup Crawl in September.