Small Business Trends: How Artemis Ward Uses Seamless Modern Tools

Colin Moffett isn’t the usual risk taker you would picture to strike off and start a small business.

Instead, as founding partners of DC-based Artemis Ward, Colin and Joel Daly took a measured, long-view approach of their potential company for over a year before they actually founded it.

“We have kids and mortgages and took this super, super seriously. It wasn’t a knee jerk thing,” said Colin. “We planned for a year plus in order to make ourselves feel somewhat good about taking this risk.”

That planning entailed everything from how their new digital agency would approach its work to determining potential clients.

And in 2014, Artemis Ward opened its doors and has since worked with clients like Nike and The World Bank on a range of topics including branding and digital strategy to design, development, social media, and content creation.

Buttoned-Up From the Get-Go

With his past experience working with clunky platforms that didn’t scale well, Colin knew exactly what he wanted his employee experience to be like from the start.

“Another thing for me is what I call ‘having good hygiene’ early on. There are plenty of organizations that didn’t have their books together...The bigger you get, the more exposed you get from that,” said Colin. “It was really important for us to be buttoned up from go.”

That meant using the right systems and keeping track of things in the right way. By being clean and organized from the start, his team wouldn’t waste its time compounding issues and detracting from the real work that needs to be done.

He also took input from product champions across his team. By doing so, each employee gets the opportunity to use new tools they may not have found or used as much on their own.

Business Tools That Work

Colin took a long-range and thoughtful approach to founding a great company. He wanted his business to scale seamlessly and delight its employees with simplified tools and processes.

Below, he discusses the business tools that make his company both easier and more enjoyable to work at.

Harvest for Time Tracking

Harvest offers simple, intuitive tools for time tracking. Because it’s on web and mobile, employees can access the platform from anywhere. Additionally, customers can use Harvest for features like invoicing and payments, expense tracking, and seamless tool integration with other programs like Slack, Salesforce, and Jira.

Xero for Simpler Accounting

For people considering an alternative to QuickBooks, Colin recommends Xero. Xero offers all kinds of automated accounting software and includes features to process and invoice quotes, reconcile credit card and PayPal transactions, and track sales and purchases.

Trello for Project Organization

“One of our team members is the Trello queen and a huge advocate,” said Colin. The online tool allows companies to organize calendars and move along projects with simple drag and drop tools. (Even Justworks uses Trello for our content calendar, and we love the ability to we have to add attachments and label and categorize projects as they move through the creation process.)

Google Drive for Vital Information

As a staple for millions, Google is an easy place to share documents, from spreadsheets to docs and forms. And integrated with a Gmail account, it also makes calendar dates easy to remind and share.

Bonus Ideas

Slack for Company Communication

As we’ve written on Justblog before, the office chat app Slack provides a seamless way for teammates to interact, share files, and foster community.

It’s especially helpful for teams who work in different locations and need to communicate. If you’re looking for some productivity boosters, you can check our list of Slack usage ideas and shortcuts that will make the day go by faster.

Salesforce for Team Coordination

If your company is selling juggling different accounts and trying to keep track of who’s talking to whom, Salesforce is the top tool for the job. It can help your team track marketing and sales leads, engage customers, and integrate with your email.

Justworks for Payroll and Access to Benefits

For payroll and admin functions for his growing team, Colin enjoys using Justworks because it makes life simple.

“[Justworks has] been great at allowing us to operate the flow of money from a vendor, payroll, back-office perspective. One of the things that was also important to me was finding tools employees would benefit from and use on a personal level,” said Colin.

You can learn more about how Justworks helps with payroll, access to team benefits, and certain government paperwork here.